This post was written by Hatchet senior staff writer Josh Solomon.
Sitting in the head coach’s office in the fall, there was a fresh feeling.
There were few fresh faces, some assistant coaching staff changes were made, but the whiteboard adjacent to Gregg Ritchie’s desk was decorated by the names of returning players.
Players who helped make up one of the youngest teams in the country the year prior, and the youngest team in the country two years ago, when a group of a half dozen or so freshmen set out to help rebuild the baseball program.
The freshness did not come from three-year-old Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year award that sat between the desk and the whiteboard. No, the past was the past at that point. The freshness came from familiar faces who would fill lineup cards for the months to follow, ready to finally win an A-10 Championship and make it to the College World Series.
Now in late May, the past is a conference season that finished 12-12 and a regular season that ended 23-31.
The past is a team that struggled with injuries – some early injuries to young arms who never got to pitch in 2016, and some mid-season injuries that lingered and still lurk, creating a dent to the strength of the lineup took, when junior Kevin Mahala and sophomore Mark Osis battled through injuries.
The past is a team that struggled with a tough non-conference – one meant to harden the team’s ability to fight through baseball’s adversities, particularly late in the season like the postseason.
The past is a team that could have won a series from VCU. At that point in the season, a series win would have meant at least a share of first place in the A-10. Instead a 13-inning affair, in which Ritchie used his closer, junior Eddie Muhl, for the final 6.1 innings on 94 pitches, came up short and the team fell back into the middle of the pack.
“The guys still have one thing in mind,” Ritchie said, after this past weekend’s sweep at the hands of Saint Louis. “They want to win an A-10. And we’re going to go out there and do everything we can to do that.”
GW enters postseason play as the seven seed, out of seven seeds.
This means the Colonials finished seventh out of 13, which is good, but not great when it comes to tournament seeding. It rarely happens where a seed lower than a five wins the tournament. Last year, fifth-seeded VCU won it all and eventually went on to the NCAA Super Regionals.
What doesn’t matter though when it comes to seeding is even as the seven seed, if the Colonials wins, and keeps winning, they can win it all. The odds are only stacked against them if they lose in one of their first two games, in this double elimination format.
GW will kick off the A-10 tournament, hosted by Fordham, at 1:30 p.m Wednesday. Against No. 2 seed VCU (15-7)
If the Colonials win Wednesday afternoon, they would play Thursday morning at 10 a.m. against the winner of No. 3 seed Saint Joseph’s (15-9) and No. 6 seed Davidson (11-11).
If GW loses to VCU though, the team will face an elimination game Wednesday night against the lowest-seeded loser between the three teams: Davidson, No. 4 Saint Louis (15-9) or No. 5 Fordham (14-10) at 8:30 p.m.
“I think they feel a confidence level that they know they played [VCU] and they know they played with them, they’ve beaten them, and they played the fourteen inning game they lost, so I think there is no, ‘Hey, it’s an unknown,’ or ‘Are we good enough?’ No, we are good enough,” Rithcie said. “We play our game, we play good, but to do that, you got to have pitching. That’s going to be the key to the whole thing.”
Pitching will be the big point of concern for the Colonials, who will be looking for a quality start from whomever gets the ball for the day.
Likely candidates include, seniors Bobby LeWarne, who threw a complete game and gave up three runs in a loss to VCU when GW played the Rams at home earlier this year, or Jacob Williams, who threw 6.1 innings, giving up five hits and one run in relief in the middle game of the VCU series.
LeWarne might be the more likely starter since he has been the unofficial ace of the staff all season long, despite not pitching well in his last three starts.
Although that would seem logical, with Ritchie, anything can go, particularly this season and especially in the playoffs with a team that has one goal, which is still very fresh in its mind – an A-10 Championship.
“You got to do what you got to do to win the game at hand,” Ritchie said “You cannot think so far ahead in a playoff situation like this, where you think, ‘Oh, I have to worry about game number two.’ No, game number two means nothing.”
View the full A-10 Championship bracket here.
