As we get deeper into February, that can only mean one thing: Lakers baseball is back. With only one more day until head coach Scott Landers takes the diamond with his squad, Oswego State baseball prepares to repeat as SUNYAC regular season champions. 

After having an overall record of 33-13 with a 16-2 conference record, the Lakers will look to carry their success from last season to this season. However, come first pitch on Saturday the lineup may look different than last year as they have lost some key bats in Ryan Enos (.451 BA), Ryan Weiss (.315 BA) and Paul Tammaro (.444 BA). 

Despite losing some people the Lakers do have key players returning. Junior infielder Jacob Levine posted a .298 batting average with 34 hits, 17 RBIs and two home runs. Sophomore infielder Tishawn Featherstone had a .272 batting average with 25 hits, 26 RBIs, six home runs and drew seven walks in his first year of college ball. 

On the pitching side, they will have graduate student Thomas Pecchia back for another year. Pecchia, coming out of the bullpen last year, had a 5-0 record with a 3.35 ERA on 45.3 innings pitched and 24 strikeouts.

Landers talks about the potential of the team without some of the impactful players from last season. 

“I think all the guys here can hit and pick up the slack,” Landers said. “It is gonna depend on how we are defensively and base running. They have been inexperienced, but the more we can get on the field defensively and run the bases, the more of a threat we will be.” 

Like Landers said the team has some inexperience and when teams are inexperienced, upperclassmen need to step up into leadership roles and help direct the younger players. Starting pitcher and graduate student Anthony Van Fossen has accepted such a role.

“I have been with the team for five years and have a lot of experience playing against SUNYAC opponents and top-ranked opponents,” Van Fossen said. “I think I have embarked on my leadership role by teaching the young guys to work out, keep throwing and stay regimented to our routine.” 

Van Fossen is coming off some career highs from last season in innings pitched (67.1), wins (5) and strikeouts (44). He was able to discuss some of his personal goals for this upcoming season. 

“One thing I want to improve on this season is getting myself a few more strikeouts, I only had 44 last year,” Van Fossen said. “A statistical goal for me is 8-10 wins instead of having five wins with four games undecided.” 

Van Fossen and Pecchia are just two players in a deep rotation and bullpen that has Landers with high expectations for the 2023 campaign. “We have a lot of veterans on the mound and I am really happy at this point with the pitching,” Landers said. “We are probably as deep as we have been in a long time and we have some front-end horses that returned.” 

The Lakers will try to improve on some of their team statistics from last season. Offensively the Lakers averaged 8.8 runs, 5.2 walks, 1.2 home runs and 11.2 hits per game. Defensively, the Lakers gave up 5 earned runs, 3.7 walks, 9.2 hits and 2.4 extra-base hits per game. They will also look to take back control of the SUNYAC after last year’s playoff-ending losses to SUNY Cortland, 11-9 and The College at Brockport, 12-4. 

In their opening game of the season, Oswego State will be on the road against the 1-0 Washington and Jefferson College. The Lakers are 0-3 all-time against the Presidents, with the most recent game coming in 2015 where Oswego State fell 8-6. The game will be at 11:30 a.m., Saturday, Feb 25 in Washington, Pennsylvania. 

Following this game, the Lakers will also play against No.9 Baldwin Wallace University twice at 2:30 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 25 and at 2 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 26. The Lakers and Baldwin Wallace University have only met once with Oswego State coming out on top 12-8.

Photo via: Oswego Athletics