During the weekend of March 2, the Vikings baseball team fought against Luther College for their first home game. After losing the first game of the series on Saturday, the team returned by winning the second game of the day on Saturday with a score of 16-11. After dropping the third game of the series, the team’s record now sits at 5-3.
After a program record of 39 wins from last season, the buzz around the Augie baseball program could not be any higher. Coming into the season, the preseason poll done by the coaches in the CCIW conference had the Vikings seated at second, with Millikin University at first. Despite the team’s excellent record, players like senior Harrison Boushele are hungry for more.
“We had a great year last year, but overall, we didn’t accomplish what we wanted,” Boushele said.“It’s easy to look back at last year and say it was a great season, but from the inside, it felt like we fell short. So we want to get back and make it farther this year.”
One of the team’s goals that carried over from last year is to win their regional and earn a place in the national tournament. Every year, the team has the goal of playing in the national championship, but in the past couple of years, the Vikings have fallen in the regional semifinals. Senior Michael Aragon said there are a couple of steps he wants the team to take going forward.
“The last two years, we’ve made it to the regional but lost in the regional semifinal,” Aragon said. “So, I think a lot of guys want to take that step forward and not only win the tournament and get a large bid but get out of it and win a regional.”
The team started their season in Memphis, Tennessee, playing in the Rhodes Classic. In the season opener versus Greenville University, the Vikings won 8-2. In the team’s final game of the classic, they fell 7-3 to Rhodes University. The loss isn’t a concern to senior Dymitri Kanellakis, who said he knows new players use this time to get acclimated. He understands this challenge of helping his teammates and is ready to lead by example.
“You have to not only challenge your teammates but also lead by example because we have a lot of new kids,” Kanellakis said. “We have 26 new kids. So, in order to keep our culture this year, we have to get them to buy into what we’ve been doing.”
After the season opener at the Rhodes Classic, the team competed in the Illinois College Invitational. They defeated Calvin University in the first game, the Vikings continued winning. The team scored a 5-4 win against St. Norbert College in the next game. In the final match of the invitational, the Vikings dominated Simpson College in seven innings, defeating them 18-3.
“We were playing the baseball that we’re used to—doing anything we can to get on base. From a pitching standpoint, we wanted to attack the zone, get ahead of the hitters, and try to get a lead out there as quickly as we could,” Boushele said.
After the series against Luther, the team will compete in various invitationals and other in-season tournaments before heading into conference play. Still, one of those series is the RussMatt Invitational in Auburndale, Florida. During that invitational, they will face off against nationally ranked Johns Hopkins University. That game is circled on the schedule for some players.
“Right now, Johns Hopkins is ranked, so that game is big for us,” Aragon said. “Both of the Florida trips and any conference game is huge. But for that John Hopkins game, we’re excited to go out there and play a good game.”
The Vikings next tournament will be the Gene Cusic Classic down in Fort Myers, Fla. tomorrow, March 8.