SPRING MILLS — The young 2017 baseball season has not been very kind so far to the Penns Valley Rams.
It seems to be all about timing.
In PV’s first outing against Juniata on March 24, the Rams’ hitters struggled with just four hits, and they fell 5-0.
Against Bald Eagle Area in Wingate on March 27, the Rams piled up 10 runs on 10 hits and still did not come away with a win. BEA scored two unearned runs in the bottom of the seventh inning and tied the game, 10-10, just before it was suspended due to darkness.
Penns Valley needs to even things out, and head coach Jon Bowersox believes he has the players to do it.
Still, it’s not happening yet as PV lost three leads against BEA and committed six errors in a game that will be completed at a later date.
“That was crazy,” Bowersox said. “That was a crazy game. Neither team could put it away. We must have stranded I don’t know how many players on base (16). We had so many chances to put them away, it was crazy.”
The Rams are coming off a tough 4-14 season in 2016. They lost their final nine games, and in that stretch four teams scored in double figures and another two put up nine. Pitching, then, and of course shoring up the defense, will be top priorities for Bowersox and his team this season.
“We have five veteran pitchers, and they’re all seniors,” he said, “and two juniors. So we have seven pitchers going into the season.”
Those seniors include Hunter Homan, Andrew Tobias, Keith Butts, Luke Sharer and Luke Snyder. Tobias, Sharer and Snyder all had wins in 2016, and Sharer (4.27) and Snyder (4.30) both come back with ERAs under 5.00. In all, the group pitched a total of 108 innings for the Rams last season.
Notwithstanding the shutout loss at Juniata, the Rams can be imposing at the plate. Snyder hit .389 in 2016, Homan .378, Butts .321, Sharer .282 and Tobias .261. Butts was second on the team with 18 hits, and Homan had 17 hits, three doubles, a triple and seven RBI.
Against BEA, Sharer and Snyder combined for seven hits, two doubles and seven RBI.
In short, the pieces are there for the Rams to put together.
“Today we came out and unleashed on them,” Bowersox said March 27, “but we had the errors that hurt us.
“But I feel better than I did last year (about the team). We’ll turn it around.”
The Rams are again in action at Bellefonte on Thursday, March 30, then they have games at Mount Union (Friday, March 31), P-O (Tuesday, April 4), at Central (Friday, April 7) and at Huntingdon (Monday, April 10).
