Bradley’s 2018 baseball season did not start off with a bang, but rather, with fog. The team’s plane was destined for the first game of the season in the Atlanta Challenge, but it was canceled due to low visibility last Thursday.
The team discovered the cancellation en route to the airport. Head coach Elvis Dominguez was faced with a crucial decision.
“I turned to my club, and I said, ‘Gentlemen, here’s the deal. We have two options: we either drive or cancel it,’” Dominguez said. “And to a tee, everyone says, ‘We want to play.’”
One coach bus and 10 hours later, the Braves arrived in Atlanta at 3 a.m. for their first game of the season against Georgia State.
Georgia State capitalized in the first inning with a home run that opened scoring 2-0. The Braves remained scoreless throughout the game until the top of the ninth inning, when sophomore Andy Shadid scored on freshman Dan Bolt’s double hit to right field.
Later that inning, with one out and bases loaded for the Braves, Georgia State managed to pull off a decisive double play. This sealed the Braves 3-1 loss.
“We should have won [against Georgia State],” Dominguez said. “Sometimes it doesn’t go your way.”
But next two games went exactly the Braves’ way. In their next game against Georgia Tech (ranked #29 nationally), Bradley executed to precision. The game was back and forth until the top of seventh. With the game tied, freshman Eli Rawlinson blasted a home run putting Bradley up 7-5. The Braves managed to score three more runs and took down Georgia Tech 10-7.
In the last game of the weekend, Kennesaw State managed to score four runs and kept the Braves scoreless until the fifth inning. With bases loaded, senior Derek Bangert hit a double to right center field, running three batters in. Sophomore Brendan Dougherty managed to run Bangert in with a single to left field tying the game. Bradley took the lead off senior Luke Mangieri’s single home run in the top of the seventh. The Braves went on to win 6-4.
Dougherty, who was awarded MVC Hitter of the Week, batted .700 for a spectacular weekend.
“Being the hitter of the week in the MVC was an honorable achievement for the first weekend of the 2018 season,” Dougherty said. “It was even more exciting to see our entire team produce offensively during the first weekend of being outside in the past couple of months.”
The baseball team enters this season after going 20-31 (6-14 in MVC) last season, the lowest number of wins since 2013. This year, there are only five seniors on the team, notably MVC preseason all-conference player Andrew Ivelia. Dominguez, however, looks toward the youth as the new leaders on the team.
“We have a very young team, but at the same time, they’re a veteran team because all those young kids played as freshmen,” Dominguez said. “It’s a very mature ball club … we’re fundamentally sound, and we try to build upon that.”
The youth can be effective in the development of the program in years to come, but one weakness with youth is lack of experience on the NCAA level. According to Dominguez, it’s important to play the freshmen repeatedly until they have become accustomed to the grueling 56 game season of NCAA baseball.
“Our guys are appreciative and understand that it’s a lot of hard work, and there’s no entitlement. It’s more of a sense of, ‘Let’s go to work because baseball is a grind,’” Dominguez said.
Both wins this weekend reflect the perseverance the team has to offer when they are behind. According to Dougherty, even when the team comes out victorious, the mindset is always on improvement.
“I felt good about my performance this weekend, but there’s always room to improve,” Dougherty said. “I’m eager to get back to practice and better prepare myself and the team to win this weekend.”
The Braves’ trip this weekend to Texas has been cancelled and instead the team has tentatively scheduled a three game series against South Dakota State at SIU Edwardsville this weekend.
