The Colby Echo

Issue date: 3/16/07 Section: Sports

The Colby College baseball team should have a solid season ahead of them with strong players in every class. The team will be led by returning Captain Andy Carr `07, who has high expectations for the 2007 season.

"Our goal is the same as any other team in the NCAA," he said, "to win a national championship. Anything short of a NESCAC championship will definitely be disappointing."

Carr led the team in nearly every offensive category, batting .406 in the 2006 campaign and knocking in 37 runs. But Carr, who earned New England Small College Athletic Conference first team all-conference honors, believes the team's depth is what will push them past the ten win mark from last season.

"With the return of a core group of players, we have more experience than in the past," he said. "We also have some freshmen that will be able to contribute to the pitching staff and in the lineup."

The core group Carr refers to includes .300 hitters Tom Salemy `07 and Colin Riggs `08. Craig Cooper `09 and Nick Spillane `08 also return to the Mules lineup and hovered just below the .300 mark last season.

On the mound, Justin Clark `09, Zachary Helm `09 and Sam Kennedy-Smith `08 will return as the team's top hurlers.

Clark posted an ERA under four last year while Helm and Kennedy-Smith ate up innings for the Mules.

The first-years will be led by two standouts from Lexington High School in Massachusetts, Nick Ruocco on the rubber and Kenneth Kaufman on the outfield grass.

The team will be led by first-year coach Dale Plummer, a former minor league pitcher in the Red Sox organization who served as Colby's pitching coach last year, with Tom Dexter on sabbatical. Carr said he's excited about what Plummer brings to the team.

"He has been around baseball all of his life and really knows the game," he said. "He brings the confidence and high expectations necessary to have a successful season."

Carr also said that the team's off-season workouts should pay huge dividends to the team's success. The team had practice throughout the fall on the field, practiced indoors in the winter and has been hitting the weight room hard in anticipation for their 2007 competition.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools