While October is most commonly associated with postseason baseball heating up in the MLB, it is also the same time the fall season of the National Club Baseball Association is heating up.

That is certainly the case for the Oswego State club baseball as they get ready to enter their third series of the season this weekend and they take on SUNY Geneseo in a two-game set.

Oswego State goes into the matchups with a 3-3 record, which included taking two out of three in a series with Niagara University two weeks ago. The series also saw two the of team’s players receive NCBA weekly accolades.

Junior pitcher and outfielder Tom Bashen was awarded pitcher of the week after finishing out the Niagara series by tossing a no-hitter in a 14-2 Oswego State victory.
“It was really cool. I definitely wasn’t expecting it because I walked a lot of guys,” Bartzyl said.

As for his pitching strategy throughout the game, Bartyzel kept things simple and stuck to what was working.

“Just really my fastball. I really didn’t throw many off-speed pitches. I just pretty much threw fastballs every pitch. My catcher basically told me they’re not gonna hit [my] fastball, so if [I] can locate it, just keep throwing it,” Bashen said.

Freshman Justin Troelstra took home the NCBA Player of the Week award, which saw him bat .778 with four home runs and five RBIs. Like Bashen, Troelstra also found the honor to be a surprise.

“It was kind of unexpected. I was surprised with my own performance. This was my first breakout game,” Troelstra said. “I really feel like I found my swing well.”

Troelstra elaborated on how he went about fine-tuning himself in the batter’s box.

“I try to hit when I can, like back home over the summer, I would hit with my brother,” Troelstra said. “I guess it’s just the muscle memory of repetition and repetition, kind of pays off every once in a while.”

Another thing both Bashen and Troelstra have in common besides astonishment over their accolades is optimism toward their team play going into the spring season.

“We have a great group of guys,” Troelstra said. “We all get along really well. I’d say the whole team’s pretty dedicated to each other and to the team, so it’s a pretty good group of guys to be around and play baseball with.”

Bartzyl projected confidence about the skill set of all members of the team.

“I think we got a lot of talent,” Bashen said. “A lot of these guys should be playing college baseball somewhere. I mean, I used to play Div. II, but yeah, we got tons of talent. If we could just get on the same page and get everyone going at the same time, I think we could probably beat anybody.”

One of the more interesting things when it comes to club baseball is that at most colleges, the coach is also a player on the team. Oswego State is no exception, as a junior outfielder and president of the team Mike Drummond also handles the coaching duties for the team. He explained some of the challenges that come along with pulling double duty.

“Trying to focus on the game and what I do in situations and also pitching changes, who’s in the game, who feels good, whose arm’s alright,” Drummond said. “I think the most important thing is injuries. If you have a lot of injuries in people’s arms, they can’t throw for a while they can throw for like an inning. Changing people around, what position they can play and can’t play, stuff like that, that’s a challenge.”

Drummond expressed his thoughts on the team’s overall play so far and which aspects they can improve moving forward.

“We started off not really hitting, but in the past few games starting with [Troelstra], we started hitting really well out of nowhere,” Drummond said. “Defensively, we just need to sharpen up and hopefully make the playoffs this year. That’s our plan.”

Photo provided by Mike Drummond