Tag: Western Illinois baseball

THE MONDAY HIVE: Bees’ Roster Complete As Season Approaches

By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

The Burlington Bees’ roster is complete as the Prospect League season begins next week.

The roster includes three players with local connections — pitcher Jacob Zahner of Burlington (Southeastern Community College), pitcher Cauy Massner of Mediapolis (Iowa Wesleyan) and infielder Kooper Schulte of New London (Central Arizona College).

Zahner and infielder Caleb Wulf are the two SCC players on the team.

Nine NCAA Division I players are on the roster, including Iowa outfielders Will Mulflur and Coy Sarsfield.

Massner is one of six Bees back from last season, joining infielder Brandon Bickford, outfielder Cedric Dunnwald, infielder Jayden Hackbarth, pitcher Adrian Nery, and pitcher/outfielder Nick Tampa.

Owen Oreskovich returns for his second season as the Bees’ manager. Jack Gray and Nathan Robertson are coaches.

The Bees open the season May 31 at home against the Quincy Gems.

A look at the roster:

PITCHERS (14)

Ryan Donley (LHP, Oakland University) — Hasn’t pitched this season

Jeremy Fox (RHP, Morton College) — 6-5, 3.04 ERA in 14 appearances. 78 strikeouts in 63 innings.

Luke Fredrick (LHP, Clarke University) — 0-0, 3.00 ERA in 3 appearances

Chase Golden (RHP, Western Illinois) — 0-1, 12.54 ERA in 23 appearances, 13 strikeouts in 18 2/3 innings.

Dylan Haslett (RHP, Oakland University) — 0-0, 13.03 ERA. Opponents hit .212.

Jake Jakubowski (RHP, Heartland Community College) — 1-0, 4.57 ERA in 17 appearances. 24 strikeouts in 21 ⅔ innings.

Preston Kaufman (RHP, Benedictine University) — Hasn’t pitched this season.

Drew Martin (RHP, Heartland Community College) — 0-0, 5.23 ERA in 11 appearances, with 16 strikeouts in 10 ⅓ innings.

Cauy Massner (RHP, Iowa Wesleyan) — 0-4, 9.07 ERA with Bees last season.

Rem Maxwell (RHP, Georgia Southern) — Hasn’t pitched this season.

Aiden McGee (RHP, Minnesota State-Mankato) — 2-0, 5.33 ERA, 31 strikeouts in 25 1/3 innings

Adrian Nery (RHP, Union College) — 1-3, 8.76 ERA with Bees last season.

Jaden Siemer (RHP, Hanover College) — 0-4, 11.81 ERA, 23 strikeouts in 21 ⅓ innings.

Nick Tampa (LHP, Morton College) — 9.28 ERA in 4 appearances. Also plays the outfield, and is hitting .284 with 6 HRs. Hit .205 with the Bees last season, and pitched in 14 games.

Jacob Zahner (RHP, Southeastern Community College) — Hasn’t pitched this season.

CATCHERS (3)

Jackson Fisher (Illinois-Chicago) —  .083 in 14 games

Mason Schwalbach (McHenry County College) — .412, 22 HRs, 88 RBIs

Ian Wolski (Hawaii Pacific) — .357, 1 HR, 16 RBIs

INFIELDERS (7)

Brandon Bickford (Mount Mercy) — .250 with 2 HRs. Hit .250 with the Bees last season.

Drew Gaskins (Oakland University) — Incoming freshman

Jaden Hackbarth (McHenry County College) — .370, 4 HRs, 48 RBIs. Hit .247 with the Bees last season.

Connor Laeng (Concordia-Irvine) — .600 in 6 games.

Kooper Schulte (Central Arizona College) — .242 in 33 games.

Keanu Spencer (Scottsdale Community College) — .301 with 3 home runs and 25 RBIs.

Caleb Wulf (Southeastern Community College) — .386, 52 RBIs in 61 games.

OUTFIELDERS (5)

Cedric Dunnwald (Mount Mercy) — Hit .200 in three games with the Bees last season.

Tanner Holland (Central Arizona College) — Redshirted this season.

Will Mulflur (Iowa) — .167 in 11 games. Battled lower back injury early in the season. Will join the team for the second half of the season.

Trenton Rice (Oakland University) — Incoming freshman.

Coy Sarsfield (Iowa) — .176 in 16 games

Photo: Pitcher/outfielder Nick Tampa is back for his second season with the Burlington Bees. (Steve Cirinna/Burlington Bees)

ORAL ROBERTS 12, WIU 0: Leathernecks Fall Short Of Summit League Tournament

By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

MACOMB, Ill. — Tayler Sheriff understands the what-ifs that can come with the end of the baseball season.

But the Western Illinois head coach knows his team had a chance to reach the Summit League tournament in the final weekend of the regular season, and that’s a good start for a rebuilding program.

The Leathernecks lost to conference regular-season champion Oral Roberts 12-0 in eight innings in Saturday’s regular-season finale.

Western Illinois finished the season 12-40 overall, 8-16 in the Summit League, finishing in a tie with Northern Colorado for fifth place in the conference, 1 1/2 games behind fourth-place Omaha, which secured the final spot in next week’s conference tournament.

Western Illinois won just eight games last season, five in conference play.

“Twelve wins was good, it certainly wasn’t the big jump we were hoping for from the previous year,” Sheriff said. “But we kind of laid the foundation, took some baby steps forward, and hopefully make that big jump moving forward into next year.”

The Leathernecks lost two games of a three-game series at Omaha earlier this month, losing the Saturday game 11-8 and the Sunday game 3-2. Those were among the what-ifs Sheriff said his team had, but he also said that series was start of a late run that included five wins in six games against St. Thomas last week.

“Down the stretch, we played some good baseball dating back to the Omaha series, where we lose two of three,” he said. “Saturday was a close game, Sunday was a one-run game, and then we go rip off five wins against St. Thomas.

“There’s one or two games here and there where you can look back and say, ‘Man, if we could have got one here or there, it’s a different story.’ Ultimately, we didn’t do enough to get in. But we put ourselves into position. And when you’re in a program where you’re rebuilding, we said all year about putting ourselves into position in games, and eventually we’ll break through.”

The Leathernecks knew they needed two wins this weekend, but they were going to have to do it against Oral Roberts (43-11, 22-1). A 7-4 loss on Thursday was another one of those what-ifs — the two teams were tied at 3 after seven innings before the Golden Eagles scored three in the eighth — then a 12-2 loss on Friday ended any postseason hopes.

This game got out of hand when Oral Roberts scored six runs in a fourth inning that started when Western Illinois starter Jake Armstrong walked three batters and hit another.

“Four straight free passes, you’re setting yourself up for disaster,” Sheriff said. “It was kind of a weird situation, (Armstrong) doesn’t give up free passes a lot. We just left some stuff out there in the inning.”

The Leathernecks couldn’t generate any offense against four Oral Roberts pitchers. Starter Brooks Fowler (8-1) allowed just one hit over five innings, then Western Illinois could only get two singles over the final three.

“I think we’ve laid the foundation, as far as everything we sought to do in rebuilding this program,” Sheriff said. “For us, we wanted to recruit really well for this year, and we’ve got a lot of young guys coming in who we’re really excited about. Beyond that, we needed to lay the foundation, lay who we want to be moving forward and what our road map is to being successful here within this program. And I think we’ve done that.”