This post was written by Hatchet senior staff writer Josh Solomon.
Senior submariner Luke Olson was asked after Sunday’s game if the team feels different than a week ago.
He gave a simple reply.
“Yeah, definitely.”
Last week GW was swept by Fordham and had just dropped five of its last six. The Colonials were treading water for a playoff berth. The team then went ahead swept Richmond at home. Olson closed out the final four innings of GW’s 8-4 Sunday, Senior Day win; all three wins were come from behind victories, including Friday’s 10th inning walk off.
“Hopefully we can get a little win streak going, keep it going and get in the playoffs with a good seed and keep going,” Olson added.
With the way Sunday’s games ended, GW (12-9) now is a lock to make the Atlantic 10 Championship. The team earn as high as the three-seed and as low as the last team in, the seventh seed.
Since the Colonials last won the A-10 tournament in 2002, no team lower than a five-seed has won the championship (which has happened three times in that span: Saint Louis, in 2006 and 2010, and VCU in 2015).
Despite the two-week long struggle for the Colonials, the team seems back on track with a slump-breaking weekend versus the Spiders.
Sunday, GW trailed 4–2 entering the seventh inning. After scoring one in that frame, the Colonials then scored five runs, capitalized by a junior Joey Bartosic two-out, two-RBI single to give GW the lead.
“Baseball is such a weird sport,” Bartosic said, after the win. “We felt like we were doing the same thing, the same approaches, but I don’t know. It is a little weird. I don’t know how we’re doing it.”
He noted though the significance of junior Bobby Campbell’s walk-off home run in the 10th inning Friday night under the lights at The Tuck.
“Props to Bobby. He’s always been huge for us all year and came through again,” Bartosic said. “That really gave us so much momentum for the next two games. I guess we now only start playing in the seventh and eighth, but that’s fine.”
The fact is GW scored 14 of its 22 runs this weekend in the seventh inning or later.
In the previous six games, against Fordham and VCU, GW scored a total of 20 runs and won a total of one game.
“I told our offense five, six days ago, ‘We got another streak in us. We’ve had really good streaks. We had two down periods. Other than that, we’ve hit the ball really well,” head coach Gregg Ritchie said. “Don’t make too much of the down period we had, that’s just sometimes what happens in hitting. Keep putting the ball in play the right way.'”
Saint Louis Preview
What: Baseball (12–9 A-10) vs. Saint Louis (12-9 A-10), Conference Series
Where: Billiken Sports Center, Saint Louis, Mo.
When: Thursday, May 19 at 6 p.m. CST; Friday, at 2 p.m. CST; Saturday, at 12 p.m. CST
The series may not be critical for the Colonials’ postseason berth, but it is for the likelihood of their postseason potential. The more wins GW collects, the better seeding the team can capture – which is important in a double-elimination format, in which the top three seeds have a big advantage and being the bottom two seeds is near fatal for a chance to win the tournament, which begins May 25th at Fordham.
“We still got work to do,” Ritchie said. “We still need to win some games in Saint Louis. Nothing is ever for sure until you go win. You know me, I expect a sweep every series. I really do. We put ourselves in a good position to do so.”
Case for the Colonials:
GW will have to play its starters.
Playoffs are real, but seeding is not official. GW will have to decide to what extent the team wants to play for seeding versus playing for health to head into the A-10’s.
The pitching staff may look a little tired, with no starter going past the sixth inning against the Spiders, but playoff-style baseball can call for a team to push the limits of its physical abilities.
Seniors Bobby LeWarne and Jacob Williams will need to pitch deep against a strong Saint Louis offense, and whether it be sophomore Brady Renner, junior Shane Sweeney or even sophomore Robbie Metz, the three starters will need to limit the powerful bats.
And the offense of course will need to continue. The team is a better team with sophomore Mark Osis in left field – lineup depth, defensive rage and arm strength. With Osis in left, and continued offensive production by sophomore Brandon Chapman, junior Eli Kashi and Metz, the team will have a good chance to win two-of-three.
Case for the Billikens:
Saint Louis is 6-3 at home this year in A-10 play.
In those nine games, the Billikens are hitting a team average of .340, compared to its conference average of .273. The team averages over eight runs a game at home in A-10 play and strikes out a mere five times a game.
Two years ago, GW was swept at Saint Louis, losing the three games: 10-4, 10-4, 5-4. Both teams have changed since then, but the Billikens remain a difficult opponent to play on the road.
Saint Louis could roll over the Colonials in a senior weekend, with a strong offense at home and a stingy pitching staff.
The bottom line:
If GW elects to not rest its starters, both on the mound and in the field, the team will once again have a good chance to win a series.
Saint Louis traditionally has one of the most potent offenses in the league, and are one of the most staunch teams to defeat on the road – but if the Colonials have their offense firing, the team’s routinely dominant pitching will be enough to secure victories for GW. If the starters don’t go for the team, in lieu of rest for A-10’s, a Billikens sweep wouldn’t be out of the question.
