New deck of baseball players has NLC team hopeful

Only one month into the 2007 season, the North Lake College baseball team hovers mid-way in the Metro Athletic Conference (MAC) standing, with a lot of work ahead for the players to surpass last season's performance.

After a complete sweep by the Richland Thunderducks on Feb. 16- 17, the North Lake Blazers dropped to 4-5 in the conference and 5-10 overall. The Thunderducks (11- 1, 14-5) now lead the board in the conference.

North Lake opened up the season Jan. 26 and 27, facing the 2006 Division III World Series national champion, the Eastfield Harvesters with one win and two losses. In its second three-game series on Feb. 9-10, the Blazers obliterated the Mountain View Lions 3-0 to pick up its first sweep in the conference.

It may still be early in the season, but the Blazers have every reason to be optimistic.

After the last-place finish in the MAC last season, the Blazers can go nowhere but up.

Last fall, North Lake Head Coach Corey Mercer gutted the spring 2006 team and started fresh with some transfer players, a few holdovers and new freshmen. To a large extent, the move seems to be working.

"This is the best group I have had since I've been here," said Mercer, the three-season Blazers head coach. "From what I've seen, we're as good as anybody else."

Making up the current 29-men roster, only eight are returning players from last season, 10 transferred from other colleges, and the rest are freshmen.

Of the defensive starters, the two returning players are center fielder Braden Tozer and shortstop Robert Flores, while right fielder Angel Caban, third baseman Evan Segler and catcher Christian Rivera are transfer players.

Freshmen fill the rest of the starter slots with first baseman Weston Parsell, second baseman Kyle Flynn, and left fielder Mason Thompson.

"When we started, as a whole, we were better offensively than defensively but now we've been pretty solid on both sides," Mercer said.

"When we throw strikes and play solid defense, we'll have a good chance of winning."

However, Mercer admitted that pitching is still a little inconsistent and lacks power.

"It's our job to throw a lot of strikes to help move the game and keep everybody off the bag," said Adrian Gaona, a right-handed pitcher who usually clocks 80-88 mph. "To me, the most important things are accuracy, change of speed and movement of the ball."

In every three-conference game series, Gaona is usually the first pitcher in rotation for the nine-inning Friday game.

Left-handers Leon Sulak or Matt Hudec take the mound for the first seven-inning doubleheader game on Saturday, and sophomore southpaw Michael Haddad starts the second nine-inning game.

"We're one of the best hitting teams in the conference," said Angel Caban, a lefty, heavy hitter who transferred from Grayson County College to become an outfielder at North Lake. "We just haven't gotten everybody on the same page. A lot of time we walked a lot of batters and that put us in a hole. That's where usually bad innings start."

This season, having better depth and few injuries have helped the Blazers' performance. The team only lost one player from last year, starting catcher Adam Hudec, due to an eye injury. His brother, starting pitcher Matt Hudec, is recovering from surgery.

"We've been pretty lucky so far. We've got a lot of guys we can plug into a lot of different areas," Mercer said.

Unfortunately, Mercer said a few weeks of bad weather has hampered their preparation rhythm. Some practice sessions had to be moved indoors.

Also, two mid-February nonconference games against Lon Morris College and Cisco Junior College had to be postponed until the end of the month.

In a league that boasts five national championship titles from 2001 to 2006, setting sight on capturing the MAC title may seem a little far-fetched for the Blazers.

But with the brand-new deck of players, the Blazers remain hopeful and confident that at the very least this season will be better off than the last one.

"Overall, we have a lot of talent and good team unity. I think as long as we play what we're capable of, we have a good chance this season," Gaona said.