2024 Baseball Season
- Thread starter MDspider8
- Start date
Whitley 3-run blast makes it 6–1. Keep the pressure on…this team came back from being down 9–2 just a few hours ago!
Another instance of an error coming back to bite the Spiders, as Roche bobbled the transfer from glove to hand on an easy comebacker that would have been the final out of the 5th, and then the Hawks get a 2-run blast. Still 10–3, but no lead is safe it seems.
Topolski gives up Cesarini's second bomb of the night to make it 11–5, but otherwise a quick inning.
Still a decent cushion, of course, but let's try to get that one back.
Edit: The Spiders do just that and more, working Lass around to score on an O'Keefe single and then O'Keefe coming all the way around on a Larson double to make it 13–5.
Edit 2: Oops, Hawk fielder lets the ball go under his glove on an easy grounder and Larson comes in to score, 14–5.
Still a decent cushion, of course, but let's try to get that one back.
Edit: The Spiders do just that and more, working Lass around to score on an O'Keefe single and then O'Keefe coming all the way around on a Larson double to make it 13–5.
Edit 2: Oops, Hawk fielder lets the ball go under his glove on an easy grounder and Larson comes in to score, 14–5.
Last edited:
Tall order before us today, but regardless of how this works out it has been a fun season that exceeded expectations. Aoki has taken a good first step with the team and look forward to continuing improvement and relevance.
Go Spiders!
Go Spiders!
Vcu has kind of been the bully in baseball too just like hoops. Going for their 4th ncaa just since moving to A10. Yeah sweeping today will be hard but we don’t expect it to happen bc it’s vcu-ur too, which sucks.
This feels like the little run we made 2 or 3 years ago... Got to the title round but they were waiting there for us.
Yeah, two years ago we lost to them in the opener, then ran off four in a row from the losers bracket to get back to the final round where we lost to them again.
And that does it for the Spider season. Competitive in the A-10 with a few ugly results, mostly mid-week games with not enough arms to keep things competitive, but overall a decent start to the Aoki era and something to build on. We've certainly got some talent. I'm concerned we'll be hit by the transfer portal again, but not much we can do other than keep landing the best guys we can and hope they want to stick around.
16-1 final. Disappointing but not surprising. Proud of our season, especially after our slow start. Aoki exceeded expectations year 1. Got to focus now on retaining our top talent and hit the recruiting trail. If we want to get over the hump and make the NCAAs again, we’re going to need significant pitching depth. Aoki did well with transfers looking to play up a level.
If he is well enough to pitch, he is well enough to hit 3 pointers…
J/k
Still, 2 6’8” guys on baseball roster?
Our women's basketball team has beaten VCU 4 of 6 in the last three years, was the A-10 regular-season and tournament champion this year and made it to the A-10 tournament championship in 2023. We have a much better program than they do.
I can’t speak on this, but 4-2 is hardly dominant. And our conference title was the first in how many years? I am glad to see that they are definitely on the upswing. A good hire for sure.
Great job by the team, the coaching staff and Coach Aoki to grow into the season and finish strong. Started off pretty shaky but the team would rally and come together. Looking forward to the next couple of years when he gets this machine rolling...hopefully.
Yes, it was our first title in who knows how many years. But that wasn't your point. Your point was, only two of our teams were routinely better than VCU's. You said nothing about being dominant.
Women's hoops has been routinely better than VCU over the past three years. That's a lifetime in college athletics these days.
Probably from an administration standpoint - this team met expectations perfectly. They "competed". That is the key word.
Dominant..routinely better…I don’t see much of a difference. We won 4, they won 2 over a short span. Remove this year and we are 2-2 over the previous two years. Over the past ten years, they’ve finished with a better regular season record 6 times. To me, that is not routinely being a better program. Did we get the best of them and win the conference this year? Yes. That is not comparable to the dominance they’ve had over us in baseball, basketball, etc.
This is probably a year or two away from taking effect, but I'm interested to see what impact the NCAA settlement will have on baseball with everything shifting to roster limits instead of scholarship limits. So the big boys could hand out 32 full rides or however many the roster cap ends up being, up from the current limit of 11.7. Remains to be seen how many schools will want to spend like that, but the option will be there.
Baseball seems likely to be one of the most significantly affected sports considering the current gap between the scholarship limit and typical roster sizes, but other sports will definitely see similar impacts to some degree.
(There's actually talk of FBS football roster sizes decreasing significantly...maybe a limit of 85–95, but of course they'll all be able to be on full scholarships. Very curious to see where that number ultimately lands. Overall it seems like walk-ons at the rich schools may become a thing of the past since they can just hand out a schollie and additional NIL and get a better player than any walk-on.)
Baseball seems likely to be one of the most significantly affected sports considering the current gap between the scholarship limit and typical roster sizes, but other sports will definitely see similar impacts to some degree.
(There's actually talk of FBS football roster sizes decreasing significantly...maybe a limit of 85–95, but of course they'll all be able to be on full scholarships. Very curious to see where that number ultimately lands. Overall it seems like walk-ons at the rich schools may become a thing of the past since they can just hand out a schollie and additional NIL and get a better player than any walk-on.)
It’s like fast food places hiring fewer employees because of the absurd minimum wages that they have to pay in places like California. The next thing you know, people are complaining about the high price of the food. Schools realize that less scholarships will save them money, and they can just buy the players they want.
We had decent hitting but pitching was very suspect. We had 3 or 4 really good hitters transfer so
there could have been a few more wins. But for several years we have lacked pitching depth and we
will never excel till we get a stronger, deeper pitching staff.
there could have been a few more wins. But for several years we have lacked pitching depth and we
will never excel till we get a stronger, deeper pitching staff.
We lost Jared Sprague-Lott to Arkansas,Alden Mathes to Clemson,Jason Neff to Nova,Mikey Kluska to UCF,Jeremy Neff to VT.
We signed 2 kids from D3 schools.
The Coach and the team fought way above their weight all season and got to A10 finals.Pretty remarkable feat given the preseason expectations had us in the lightweight division.
We signed 2 kids from D3 schools.
The Coach and the team fought way above their weight all season and got to A10 finals.Pretty remarkable feat given the preseason expectations had us in the lightweight division.
32 not taking anything away from their effort since the old adage of “ not how you start, but how you finish”, applied to this team. Aoki proved he can coach and liked how he played small ball early. But fact remains Spider Baseball has had limited depth in the pitching department for several years and as a former player and fan, it is frustrating to see.
Thank god for lax and football, the only two teams that are routinely better than VCU’s.
VCU baseball has been better than UR for several years, and especially lately. They have made the NCAA tourney 3 of the last 4 years and they have won the A10 regular season 3 times. UR has done nothing in baseball since 2002 - super regional appearance, and 2003 NCAA appearance. It has been very quiet since then. It is not even close - VCU baseball has been ahead of UR baseball since we joined the A10.
Similar threads
