Photo by Corey Maher
QUINTIN JAMES
Special to The Leader
The Blue Devils had a chance to break their long losing streak when they faced off against rivals, Pennsylvania State Behrend, in a matchup of I-90 teams.
Though the season is still in its early stages, there are some major concerns with this team. After starting the season on a hot streak, the team has dropped eight in a row, and the offense that was “en fuego” the first three weeks has recently gone ice cold.
Fredonia fell to Behrend, in its only game of the week, by the score of 3-0. Again, the offense stalled as the Blue Devils couldn’t muster up more than one hit per inning. They stranded nine runners on base and didn’t capitalize on many opportunities they had in this game.
Sophomore pitcher Bailey Gauthier said the key for the team to get back on track is to get back that power it was playing with while in Florida.
Photo by Corey Maher
“All it takes is getting our intensity back up, bringing back the confidence and strong mentality at the plate and on the on the mound — playing the game the Blue Devil way,” said Gauthier.
The team isn’t too down on itself as the players know how good they can be. Gauthier explained how the team knows its potential and how believing in each other’s abilities is the start to getting out of this funk they’re in.
“We know how good and scrappy of a team we were before the season started,” said Gauthier. “We just have to get back to truly believing in ourselves because we know we are a very good team.”
Everyone on the team has that same mindset that, if they get back to playing hard every game, things will get better.
“Right now, we’re just a couple of steps off where we started the year with our type of play and energy on the field,” said senior pitcher Carl Wolf. “We just need to get back to the state of mind we were [in] playing down south at the beginning of the season, and everything will fall into place.”
Junior pitcher Lucas Schaefer talked about how the team needs to have a short memory after suffering multiple defeats the past two weeks.
“We know that is not time to push the panic button yet, and I think everyone knows that each of us need to dig down deep during this rough patch,” said Schaefer.
Photo by Corey Maher
Besides a couple of rough innings, the Fredonia pitchers played well. But they couldn’t carry the team to a victory on a day the offense was flat and disappointing again. The Blue Devils and Behrend will meet again on April 25 in Erie, Pennsylvania, to settle the Interstate I-90 Cup once again.