Wooster returns from “long haul” with some questions answered, others to be solved

College of Wooster baseball coach Tim Pettorini had a lot of questions that he hoped would be answered on the Scots’ swing south. Some were, some weren’t, but there was one that Pettorini could easily answer.

“It was a long haul, it really was,” said Pettorini. “It was probably a little too much for some of the guys right off the bat. They were told in the beginning we wanted to see how tough they were and how they’d respond. We got some questions answered, but there are a lot more to answer. We’ve got a lot of work to do.

“When you’re on a trip for two weeks you don’t get to practice and work on things like you need to,” he added. “You go game to game, and for some of the young kids, they’re just trying to survive. They’re not focused on getting better, but just getting through the day and into tomorrow and hopefully we win. It’s tough.”

The Scots left Wooster March 12 and opened the season with a win. They returned home March 27 following a 14-inning, 5-3 win in Delaware, finishing the trip with a 10-9 mark overall and a 4-2 record in the North Coast Athletic Conference. That included a split against two of the top teams in the NCAC, Wabash and Wesleyan.

While the record wasn’t what Wooster has come to expect in recent years, Pettorini also took one of his youngest clubs to Florida in a number of years. With 19 games in 14 days, that factored into the Scots’ performance.

“I think so,” said Pettorini, who knew this was going to be a learning trip, especially with games against Wabash and OWU lined up on the heels of the trip. “We tried to be positive. We had six conference games and went 4-2, all on the road. The old saying is if you play .500 on the road and win at home, you’ll be OK.

“Of the four toughest teams in the league, all of our games are on the road. The schedule maker didn’t do us any favors. Our four longest trips are also all on the road, so the four best teams we play are all at their place. We knew it would not be an easy task.

“I think for the most part our young kids hung in there,” he added. “I think a couple are as good as advertised. The (Zac) Mattie kid from West Holmes (.270 batting average, team-high 14 RBI) played real well and the (Craig) Day kid from Waynedale (.273) played pretty darn good. A couple of others scuffled a little bit, but it is a lot different going from high school to college. The intensity level gets magnified.”

Pettorini liked the team’s resiliency, especially as it bounced back after opening-game losses to Wabash and OWU to win the nightcaps.

“I hope that serves us well,” Pettorini said. “Our guys were worn down. We left Fort Myers on Thursday and drove 20 hours to get to Crawfordsville. When we left Fort Myers it was 85 and when we got to Crawfordsville it was 35. We had to go outside. We didn’t want it to be long, but we had to get into the cold air and practice. It was real cold Saturday.

“We split with them, then drove 4.5 hours to get to Delaware. We had a breakdown on the bus, got caught in a traffic jam and it was 12:30 (a.m.) before we got to the hotel and checked in. The game (Sunday) was moved up an hour. We were really running on empty by then. Guys in the NBA take weeklong trips and they don’t do real well at the end, and those are well-paid professional athletes, not 18- or 19-year-old athletes.”

The key to the Scots was expected to be their pitching, and Wooster’s four main hurlers all logged 19 or more innings. Justin McDowell went 3-1 with a 3.24 ERA while Matt Barnes was 2-0. Tyler Fugate (1-0) earned NCAC Player of the Week honors for a strong performance the first week, and Keenan White’s 1.78 ERA in 25 innings offset his 0-2 mark. As a bonus, freshman Steve Hagen complied a 3-1 mark and a 1.93 ERA. That was a good start and one Pettorini expects will improve.

“We played 19 games in two weeks and we’re not going to do that again,” he said. “Our games are going to be spread out and all of our doubleheaders are going to be seven innings – we’re not going to need 14 pitchers. We’ll be able to scale back some innings and that will help even more pitching wise. A couple times we had to trot kids out, tired and sore, and they had to give us a couple innings. We don’t have to do that now.

“I’d feel better if we were 18-1, but we didn’t think that would be possible this trip. I thought we would do a little better as far as wins and losses, but we played a lot of close games and found a way to win a few of them. I think we’ll continue to get better.”