2008-09 Baseball Season

Entering our fourth year, our staff and players are very excited about the upcoming season. Returning players, as well as incoming freshmen, have developed a healthy chemistry. Our coaching staff, once again, has done an outstanding job working with individual players developing their offensive and defensive fundamental skills.

We have put a great deal of emphasis on our offensive approach this Fall. We are developing an offensive identity as a team as well as working with individual players to understand what their offensive strengths are.

Coming off a very difficult 2007 season as it pertains to “tough loss after tough loss”, our team is more determined than ever to finish games with a “close win” other than a “tough loss”. I am making reference to 6 one-run losses and 8 two-run losses in ’07.

Our offense will be the key in regards to supporting the strength of our which pitching. Our pitching staff has bee consistently effective over the past two seasons. I believe we will be a better hitting team in general, with more consistent situational and timely hits.

The defense, although not outstanding, has been solid. Untimely errors have to be reduced. I believe with the experience our players now have, we will be a more relaxed and confident defensive team.

The “bottom line” is we need to win ball games. We were very competitive last year playing a very tough schedule, both in and out of conference. The objectives are to improve in some area every day. Our ultimate goal is to play well enough to qualify for the tournament, win the conference crown, and go as far as we can into the post season.

I expect a fundamentally sound team that exhibits great hustle, discipline, genuine passion for the game, and a high baseball IQ, The 2009 edition of the WHEELING JESUIT BASEBALL CARDINALS will be a fun and exciting team to watch.