The Bellevue College baseball team has been playing some pretty decent baseball, but a lot of bad luck has plagued the team. The team is currently in fifth place in the North Division behind Everett, Edmonds, Douglas, and Skagit Valley with a record of 6-10 in conference play and an 18-16 record in regular season play. This is not the strongest record, but being above .500 is a good achievement in itself. The team has had some leaders with strong showings in both pitching and hitting. Now in conference play, the baseball team is working on having a strong finish.
There are some strong players on this team that are working hard to propel this team to victory. The big stars are sophomore Max Brown, and sophomore Jordan Richartz, sophomore who have been near the top of the league in batting average with Brown solidly hitting a massive .438 average and leading the team in home runs this season with three, and Richartz hitting a stunning .387 batting average and 21 runs batted in. Other team leaders in the hitting category are sophomore Andrew Flatt with 22 runs batted in, freshman Ryan Malone who has a .309 average and 14 runs batted in. Some strong batting has been a good reason for the team’s wins.
The team is also excelling in the pitching category with some impressive stat lines. Freshman starting pitcher Aaron Sandefur leads the team in wins with five with 41 innings pitched, and 42 strikeouts, sophomore starting pitcher Jake Reppert who leads the team with 47 strikeouts over 51.1 innings pitched, and freshman starting pitcher Brandon Mahovlich who posted a 1.46 earned run average over 30.2 innings pitched with 38 strikeouts. Solid pitching from a number of players has gotten the team a number of wins during the season, and during conference play.
However, the team has faced its share of bad luck over the season. Head Coach Mark Yoshino said, “We have lost several players to injuries to the point where we are trying to re-create a new lineup this late in the season which has made it a rough season.” Forcing the team to improvise on their players was not an easy task, and makes their above .500 record all that much more impressive. If he team continues to have its big players perform, and have the leadership of their coach, then there is no reason why this team can’t perform well through the rest of conference.