Sometimes the Linfield baseball team doesn’t have to look far from home to find excellence.

This year, the Wildcats had an experienced pitching staff with five seniors. This next year, Linfield will lose those pitchers and require other pitchers to step up and fill the spots of the five seniors who are moving on from Linfield baseball. One pitcher who has shown a lot of promise and pitched a significant amount of innings this year is freshman Chris Haddeland.

“I love pretty much everything about baseball. I like being around my teammates, watching spectacular plays, and all the excitement that comes with playing the game,” Haddeland said. “I enjoy pitching because I get to be involved in every single play. There’s never a dull moment when you’re on the mound.”

Haddeland just moved a few blocks over when he left McMinnville High School. He played baseball there lettering in varsity baseball his junior and senior years.

“I grew up playing baseball here in McMinnville. I played all through elementary school and middle school, and kept playing at McMinnville High School,” Haddeland said.

His senior year, he was the Pacific Conference pitcher of the year and 6A first team all-state pitcher.

People just graduating from high school do not see much time on varsity their freshman year. Haddeland, however, has proven to be more than just a freshman sitting with the varsity squad.

Sometimes it can be difficult being a freshman amongst upper classmen, however, for Haddeland he fits right in.

“All of my teammates are very supportive and are encouraging when I pitch. I feel like I was received pretty well by the team. It’s a great group of guys on the baseball team and they made me feel included,” he said.

Throughout the year, the baseball team has had success. Hitting has been good, as of late, along with the ‘Cats pitching. This year, Haddeland has shown that he too can be counted on among the experienced veterans on the Wildcat roster to come into games either to start or to relieve.

Haddeland has started for the ‘Cats three times this year during the course of the season. His ERA is at 3.78 in 13 appearances on the mound, and is fourth in innings pitched for the Wildcats. He, along with senior Robert Vaughn, also has two saves on the year, tied for first in saves on the team.

Going over his freshman season, he feels that he did well pitching and looks forward to improving his change-up and working on “command of all my pitches,” he said.

The future looks promising for Haddeland, and with a chance of the team going to regionals, he has the chance of getting some post season experience under his belt.

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Carson Crepeaux/Staff writer
Carson Crepeaux  can  be reached at linfieldreviewsports@gmail.com.

When looking back on the season for the Linfield baseball team, I was left with a bunch of what-ifs, wondering why it didn’t do as well as expected with the team that it had this year. Was it the coaching? Or, was it the attitude of the players?

The ‘Cats were ranked as high as No. 2 in the nation this year. This, however, did not last, and now the baseball team is no longer in the top 25 in the Division-III rankings. As I poured over the games I had watched, I tried to understand why they were unable to be the dominating team the polls had predicted they would be.

At the end of last season, the Wildcats had a team batting average of .315 with 44 games under their belt. This year, however, after 34 games, their team batting average was .285. Not only was team batting average lower, but its runs scored average was also lower. In 2011, their average runs per game was 6.95, but in 2012, this statistic dropped to 6.24. In 2011, the Wildcats never lost a best of three series, while in 2012, the ‘Cats lost the best of three series against Pacific University, George Fox University and Whitworth University.

Another scoring statistic that haunted the team was that if it was trailing this year beyond the fourth inning, it only won three of those games. So, before I blame it all on their batting, the pitching staff must bear some of the fault if the hitters averaged six runs a game. Opponents’ batting average against the pitching staff was .232 in 2012, while in 2011 it was .241.

The ERA of the Wildcat pitchers was 2.92 in 2012 and 2.81 in 2011. Although the pitchers’ ERA was 2.92, the defense in the field behind them faltered this year. The average runs per game against Linfield in 2012 was 3.76. In 2011, it was 3.63. Due to errors, Linfield, on average, gave up one more run a game in both years.

When breaking down the averages of the season, it’s hard to understand what went wrong for the Wildcats. They played similarly to 2011, but instead of taking first in the NWC with 20 wins and 4 losses, they ended in fifth place with 15 wins and nine losses.

The difference this year was that the ‘Cats didn’t score in games where they needed to score. Due to errors, pitching stayed in innings longer then they should have, and when they had to string hits together to score runs, they failed to do so. It wasn’t that they lacked talent or that the coaches ruined the games for them, instead, it was just unfortunate circumstances, such as great pitching and poor hitting or great hitting combined with poor pitching and fielding against teams they had to beat.

Perhaps the most shocking statistic from the two years was not what the team did, but the fan turnout.  In 2011, total home attendance was 2,435 averaging 202 people a game. In 2012, however, total home attendance dropped to an average of 97 people a game.

So, perhaps for success the ‘Cats just need a little more fan support to get them through next year.

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Carson Crepeaux/Staff writer
Carson Crepeaux  can  be reached at linfieldreviewsports@gmail.com.