While the 124th season of Otterbein Cardinal baseball doesn't officially start until the end of this month, preparations got under way last Sunday with the season’s first mandatory practice.
Otterbein is coming off a season of many highs and lows. Highs in that they finished 23-15, their third straight 20 or more win season. Lows in that they were a disappointing 7-11 in league play and missed out on making the Ohio Athletic Conference tournament.
The 2015 Cardinals return much of their core positional talent from last year’s group, including senior Ohio Dominican transfer Jake Simmerman, who led the team in batting average with .389, and senior shortstop Sean Kettering who lead the conference in home runs, and the team in runs batted in.
“We really have a lot of great talent coming back,” said 16th year head coach George Powell. “These are all guys with a lot of experience and have played a lot of innings. We have big expectations of them.”
The pitching staff is just as experienced, all eight pitchers who recorded at least one win last season return this year. The staff is expected to be lead by junior right-hander Adam Collier, who is the most experienced player, throwing 50 2/3 innings last year. Also in the rotation will be junior righty Ben Hamilton, who was undefeated on the mound last year at 6-0 with a 4.57 earned run average.
“Our pitching will be a strong point this year,” said Powell. “We have a lot of guys returning with Ben [Hamilton], Terrell [Dorsey], Adam [Collier], and [Taylor] Ellis, and some freshman we are excited about.”
The pitching staff struggled at times last year giving up ten or more runs in eight games. The team ERA of 5.15 was seventh in the OAC a season ago.
Otterbein was well represented this summer with 14 players playing in summer collegiate leagues across the country. Simmerman batted .345 in 21 games with the Okotoks Dawgs in Canada. Kettering was the MVP of the Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League All-Star game in July, playing for the Hamilton Joes. Cardinals also played this summer in South Carolina, California, Kansas, and Wyoming.
The Ohio Athletic Conference will be a tough league to play in again this year. Two teams were ranked in division-three’s pre-season poll, Marietta at 13th and Baldwin Wallace at 20th. Heidelberg also received some votes.
Last season the conference title race came down to the end of the season with Marietta winning the league’s regular season title, but John Carroll took the tournament championship. Four teams made the NCAA division-three tournament.
This season’s first game is February 25 against Mount St. Joseph on the turf field of VA Memorial Stadium in Chillicothe. Two days later the Cards will leave for Ft. Meyers, Florida to play ten games over a seven-day stretch. You can hear all of the games in Florida on Otterbein’s radio station, 97.5 WOBN.
