Spring Break
Home > Sports
Ducks ready to swing for the fences and another title shot
Loaded with returning veteran players and freshmen ready to make an immediate impact, the team is aiming for a fourth NCBA World Series run
by Josh Norris | Sports Copy Editor
After having its season-opening series with Cal rained out two weekends ago, the Oregon Ducks' club baseball team is ready and raring to go in 2007.
The 2006 season and subsequent offseason was certainly one to forget, as the team saw its championship hopes dashed by Colorado State, had former players Travis Chock and Peter Phillips charged with Class B misdemeanors following an incident at the team's batting cage, and lost now-former coach Brad Ficek after negotiations to try and allow Chock back with the team.
All that aside, pitcher and club coordinator Jonathan Jwayad calls the outlook this season "optimistic."
"I feel like our team has a chance to do as well or better than last year's team," Jwayad said. "We're young. Half of our new players are freshmen or sophomores."
The tryouts this season featured fewer players than in the past, but more of those who made the cut have a chance to make an immediate impact, Jwayad said.
"I've been here for three years and progressively tryouts have become more and more," he said. "The quality of players trying out has increased dramatically and the number of players trying has decreased. It seems when I first started three years ago we'd have 80 guys try out, but 40 of them didn't have a chance. But now that the University's had success, the guys that have never played before don't even come."
One of the benefits of these tryouts is an infusion of young talent that the team hopes will carry it past the precipice and into the winner's circle of the National College Baseball Association World Series, which the Ducks have reached three years in a row only to lose out to perpetual powerhouse Colorado State every time.
Two of the first-timers, Cameron Gaulke and Corey Johnson, both freshmen, make up what Jwayad calls "the best outfield Oregon's had in years."
Also joining the Ducks will be new second baseman Andrew Murphy, a former member of the Oregon football team who left the team after breaking a bone and choosing the less contact-intensive world of baseball.
The 2006 season and subsequent offseason was certainly one to forget, as the team saw its championship hopes dashed by Colorado State, had former players Travis Chock and Peter Phillips charged with Class B misdemeanors following an incident at the team's batting cage, and lost now-former coach Brad Ficek after negotiations to try and allow Chock back with the team.
All that aside, pitcher and club coordinator Jonathan Jwayad calls the outlook this season "optimistic."
"I feel like our team has a chance to do as well or better than last year's team," Jwayad said. "We're young. Half of our new players are freshmen or sophomores."
The tryouts this season featured fewer players than in the past, but more of those who made the cut have a chance to make an immediate impact, Jwayad said.
"I've been here for three years and progressively tryouts have become more and more," he said. "The quality of players trying out has increased dramatically and the number of players trying has decreased. It seems when I first started three years ago we'd have 80 guys try out, but 40 of them didn't have a chance. But now that the University's had success, the guys that have never played before don't even come."
One of the benefits of these tryouts is an infusion of young talent that the team hopes will carry it past the precipice and into the winner's circle of the National College Baseball Association World Series, which the Ducks have reached three years in a row only to lose out to perpetual powerhouse Colorado State every time.
Two of the first-timers, Cameron Gaulke and Corey Johnson, both freshmen, make up what Jwayad calls "the best outfield Oregon's had in years."
Also joining the Ducks will be new second baseman Andrew Murphy, a former member of the Oregon football team who left the team after breaking a bone and choosing the less contact-intensive world of baseball.
Be the first to comment on this story