by Matt Koll
It’s a familiar program coming in as the top seed and a familiar venue for the PAC Baseball Tournament. It’s Washington & Jefferson hosting the event for the sixth-straight season, gunning for its second straight title victory in their 14th-straight tournament appearance. But in baseball, anything can happen and there are three other squads vying to ruin those aspirations. And hey, anything is possible in PAC baseball, like a pitcher going on to start in the Major Leagues (shoutout to former Waynesburg Yellow Jacket Mason Miller!) Let’s check out the field.
No. 1 WASHINGTON & JEFFERSON (28-12, 17-3 PAC)
Head coach Jeff Mountain is in his 21st season as head coach of the Presidents, a program that has been a powerhouse over the last decade plus. No different this year as W&J has literally brought the power to the plate, leading the conference in home runs with 31, six more than the next best team. Six different Presidents hitters have multiple homers, including Evan Sante and Joe Lehner who have each hit five, tied for 4th-best in the conference.
Tyler Horvat is a two-way stud, going 10-2 with a 3.14 ERA (3rd in PAC) and 80 strikeouts in 83 innings pitched while hitting .386 (7th in PAC) on the year with a 1.051 OPS and being named the PAC Hitter of the Week this past week. He’s also the unquestioned leader of the team, according to coach Mountain.
“Our number one pitcher from last year is using his covid year and has turned into the Friday night starter at the University of St. Louis. Our number three is pitching at Ohio State. Tyler is old school. You have to pull the ball out of his hand when he pitches and it’s time to be done. He’s also our best hitter. He’s going to play at Bryant after he graduates.”
We also can’t forget about Nolan Lutz’s impact on this team, the owner of a .650 slugging percentage (2nd in PAC), 1.122 OPS (3rd in PAC) and 13 doubles (4th in PAC).
The Presidents finished the season on a 14-3 run, with one of those losses coming to their opponent on Thursday, Westminster. The Titans took it to W&J, winning that game 11-2 before the Presidents won 5-2 in 10 innings in the second game of the doubleheader.
This team is balanced with the star power to win it all again this year.
“It’s been an unusual year. Our run differential with the three teams in the tournament is a combined even, which is probably rare for a one seed. We lost three of our top four pitchers to injuries. It’s been a battle. We’ve persevered,” said Mountain. “But are we the favorite? All we hear is that we aren’t. It shows the depth and caliber of teams in the tournament.”
No. 2 GROVE CITY (29-9, 16-4 PAC)
This Wolverines team has been right there with W&J all season long. And the numbers show it.
Grove City finished with the best team batting average in the conference at .322, scoring the most runs (322), racking up the most total bases (597), with the best slugging percentage (.468), on-base percentage (.420) and hitting a conference-best 27 triples. CJ Saylor (50), Josh Minnich (40) and Mally Kilbane (38) are one, two and three in the PAC in RBI’s.
“I’ve been very happy with our offense this season,” said head coach Matt Royer. “After feeling things out in the beginning of the season we have pretty much stayed with the same lineup, with only one small change along the way. We really emphasized going the other way on outside pitches and using the whole field and the guys have responded well. We also had a goal of cutting down on our strike outs and improved immensely in that area.”
Then there’s the pitching staff…
A conference-best 4.30 ERA is backed up by the fewest amount of hits, home runs, earned runs and walks allowed with a conference-low .256 batting average against with 303 strikeouts, also a conference-best. The good times are rolling right into the postseason as well with Tate Ostrowski being named PAC Pitcher of the Week this past week.
All this being said, it’s hard to find a flaw with this team. The Wolverines scored nine runs in both of their games against Saint Vincent during the season, winning them both. They also swept Westminster and split with W&J, their other possible opponents in this tournament. So can they win it all?
“I felt before the season we had a good shot but then we lost Nick Guidas for the season with an injury during our Florida trip,” said Royer. “The guys responded well throughout the rest of the year but that left a big hole in our starting rotation. In the playoffs that is a big deal. Our team has played hard all year and overcome a lot of obstacles early in the season. I feel like we will need to hit the ball well against some quality pitching to make a run in the tournament. That is easier said than done but our guys have done a great job all year and I am excited to see how we do.”
No. 3 SAINT VINCENT (20-16, 13-7 PAC)
A doubleheader sweep of Thiel clinched their spot into the PAC Tournament as Saint Vincent rides a three-game winning streak heading into the postseason.
Billy Perroz is one of the conference’s best hitters, finishing the season hitting .425 with seven HR and 36 RBI, ranking in the top four in each of those statistical categories. He also owns a monstrous .746 slugging percentage, by far the best in the PAC. He can change the game with one swing of the bat.
A 4.88 ERA ranks third behind Grove City and W&J, as pitching continues to be the formula for success whether that’s in the regular season or postseason.
In their regular season doubleheader against Grove City, the Bearcats allowed a four-run fourth inning and a four-run eighth inning be their demise in a 9-2 loss in Game 1. Saint Vincent got to the Grove City pitching in Game 2 in what was a back and forth affair, but it ended in a one-run loss at 9-8.
They’ll try to carry over their hot bats from their regular season-ending doubleheader against Thiel and their Game 2 victory against Allegheny in the series before that. They scored 28 runs in those three games.
No. 4 WESTMINSTER TITANS (20-18, 13-7 PAC)
Things ended on a high note for the Titans as well, a doubleheader sweep of Bethany on the road got them a spot in the postseason. Westminster rode some high’s and low’s this season as they had a midseason stretch in which they won six games in a row, lost four out of five right after that, and then bounced back to rip off a five game winning streak.
The encouraging thing is that they played W&J tough during their doubleheader in the regular season. The Titan bats exploded in Game 1, scoring 11 runs on 11 hits including a five-run fifth inning en route to nine unanswered runs to win it easily. Game 2 went into extra innings before the Presidents scored two runs in the top 10th to win it 5-3.
The other encouraging thing is that they can send out some studs on the mound. Logan Exler posted a 2.87 ERA (2nd in PAC) in 53.1 innings pitched and Kolton Banfi finished the regular season going 5-2 with a 3.86 ERA (10th in PAC) in 56 innings pitched, both recording two complete games this year as well.
