Can Fresno State Continue Recent Dominance?

2009 Regular Season Champ: San Jose State

2009 Tournament Champ: Fresno State beat New Mexico State 5-3

The Western Athletic Conference might never have been stronger from top to bottom as it was in 2009. The season did not end in a WAC team winning the College World Series as it did in 2008 with Fresno State, but for the first time in the conference’s 47-year history each team won at least 25 games. No less than five of the seven teams in the WAC improved from 2008, led by New Mexico State, which won 16 more games in 2009 than the year before.

Fresno State continues to be the national face of the WAC, winning the postseason tournament the last four years. The Bulldogs, the conference’s all-time leader with 32 NCAA appearances, are the only WAC team to advance to a regional tournament the last three years.

Fresno State is ranked (33rd) and New Mexico State and Hawaii have received votes in one (Collegiate Baseball) 2010 pre-season poll.

The WAC returns four freshman All-Americans this season (Fresno State’s Dusty Robinson, Hawaii’s Kolten Wong, Nevada’s Nick Melino and Sacramento State’s Jesse Darrah).

Fresno State

2009 Record: (32-30, 12-12)

Mascot: Bulldogs

Head Coach: Mike Batesole.

Location: Fresno, Calif.

Vitals: .283 BA, 89 HR, 453 R, 44 SB, .964 Fld% . . . 5.61 ERA, 374 SO, 218 BB, 10 SV

WAC Attack: The Bulldogs’ four tournament titles in a row ties a WAC record set by Arizona State (1975-78).

Seeing Double: Pitcher Taylor Garrison (4-3, 4.87 ERA) and catcher Trent Garrison (.219, 12 RBI) are twins. The two 19-year-old sophomores graduated from Vista Murrieta High School in Murrieta, Calif.

Flair For Dramatics: Jordan Ribera had a day (May 24) in the WAC Tournament last year that he’ll never forget. The infielder hit a two-run homer to break a 7-7 ninth inning tie to beat New Mexico State, 9-7, in the first championship game. In the second championship game that day, Ribera’ two-run, eighth inning homer broke a 3-3 tie, leading the Bulldogs to a 5-3 victory and the WAC crown.

Home Run Champ Missing: Tommy Mendonca, the 2008 College World Series Most Outstanding Player, hit a WAC-best 27 homers last year as a junior

Danny Muno

and set a Fresno State record with 44 career blasts. Mendonca was drafted in the second round by the Texas Rangers and is now playing professional baseball.

Among The Best: Second baseman Danny Muno ranked ninth in the nation last year with a .525 on base percentage, 28th with 74 runs scored and 10th with 25 doubles.  His brother, Kevin Muno, is a junior outfielder at San Diego.  They went head-to-head two years ago at an NCAA Regional when FSU beat SD en-route to winning the 2008 national title.  Dusty Robinson (.319, 45 RBIs, 12 doubles) was a Freshman All-American in 2009.

Decades Of Dominance: The Bulldogs have had 33 consecutive seasons of .500 or better.

Hawaii

2009 record: (32-26, 11-12)

Mascot: Rainbows

Head Coach: Mike Trapasso

Location: Honolulu, Hawaii

Vitals: .278 BA, 346 R, 64 HR, 38 SB, .975 Fld% . . . 5.74 ERA, 10 SV, 350 SO, 177 BB.

Playing The Big Boys: Hawaii will play a tough non-conference schedule in 2010, taking on the likes of Oregon, Oregon State, USC, Long Beach State, Fullerton, Stanford, and San Diego.

From Los Angeles to Honolulu: Nathaniel Klein, who spent two years (one as a redshirt) in the USC program, debuted for the Rainbows last year and went 3-4 with a 5.10 ERA in 11 games.

Patience Pays Off: Harrison Kuroda, the 2004 Gatorade Hawaii High School Player of the Year, pitched in just nine games over four seasons after graduating from the Mid-Pacific Institute (high school). The 5-foot-9 right-hander, though, pitched in 15 games in 2009 with a 4-1 record for the Rainbows.

Cheering On The Rainbows: Hawaii averaged 2,990 tickets issued each game last year at 4,312-seat Les Murakami Stadium, the most in 12 years at the school. The Rainbows drew over 3,500 for six games in ‘09.

Freshman Flash: Outfielder Kolten Wong was named to five Freshman All-American teams after hitting .341 with 11 homers and 52 RBI last year.

Louisiana Tech

2009 Record: (29-22, 13-11)

Mascot: Bulldogs

Head Coach: Wade Simoneaux

Location: Ruston, La.

Vitals: .323 BA, 438 R, 92 HR, 60 SB, .962 Fld% . . . 7.24 ERA, 8 SV, 353 SO, 259 BB.

Getting The Love At Home: The Bulldogs have had a winning record at J.C. Love Field for 33 of the past 39 seasons. They were 18-6 last season at home.

Following Big Brother?: Outfielder Clint Stubbs (.304, 6 RBI in 79 at-bats), is

Devon Dageford

the brother of Drew Stubbs (University of Texas, 2006) of the Cincinnati Reds. Clint, a senior, played one season at Texas, hitting .250 in 12 games in 2007.

No Call On Draft Day: Devon Dageford was among the national leaders last year as a junior with 23 home runs (9th) and 68 RBI (54th) and also hit .385, slugged a WAC-best .862 and had a school-record 168 total bases but was not drafted last June.

Backstop Back: Senior Drew Thomas, who played 2006-08 with the Bulldogs, is returning this season after missing all of 2009 with an injury. Thomas, who was drafted in the 45th round by Arizona in 2005, hit .212 in 33 at-bats in 2008 as a backup catcher.

Slam Deja Vu: Devon Drageford made Dallas Baptist see double in back-to-back games last March. The outfielder hit a grand slam in a Bulldogs’ victory on March 26 at Love Field and then repeated the act the very next day.

Bulldog Power: Louisiana Tech ranked 13th in the nation last year in slugging at .545.

Nevada

2009 Record: (25-31, 10-13)

Mascot: Wolf Pack

Head Coach: Gary Powers

Location: Reno, Nev.

Vitals: .287 BA, 349 R, 44 HR, 51 SB, .968 Fld% . . . 6.14 ERA, 8 SV, 342 SO, 242 BB.

Alaska Pipeline:  Joe Kohan, the 2008 Gatorade Alaska High School Player of the Year, hit .253 in 87 at-bats last year as a freshman as an infielder.

Football Mentality: Senior shortstop Kevin Rodland (.267, 26 RBI), who played his freshman year in 2007 at Arizona (.170 in 30 games), was the last of four brothers to play quarterback at Snohomish (Wash.) High School.

Baseball Bloodlines: Junior pitcher/ DH Brock Stassi (.262, 18 RBI, 6-5, 6.63 ERA) is the son of Nevada Hall of Famer Jim Stasis (.381 career average in 1982-82). His great uncle Myril Hoag played with the New York Yankees with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

Hitting Machine: First baseman Shaun Kort has a career batting average of .349 (229-for-657) in three seasons with 16 HR and 172 RBI. The left-hander has coaxed 93 walks and has struck out just 71 times in his career.

The Power Of Coaching: Head coach Gary Powers, a northern Nevada native (Minden) and former Wolf Pack pitcher (1970-71), is the longest tenured coach in the history of the school. The Wolf Pack has won 30 or more games 15 times in last 21 years under Powers and has been to four NCAA Regionals.

New Mexico State

2009 Record: (44-17, 12-12).

Mascot: Aggies

Head Coach: Rocky Ward

Location: Las Cruces, N.M.

Vitals: .353 BA, 668 R, 151 2Bs, 119 HR, 61 SB, .968 Fld% . . . 6.28 ERA, 15 SV, 446 SO, 247 BB.

Best With The Bat: The Aggies finished first in the nation in 2009 in runs scored per game (11.0), runs scored (668), slugging (.599) and walks (416) and were fourth in average (.353), second in home runs (119) and seventh in doubles (151).

Total  Turnaround: The Aggies’ 44-17 record in 2009 is the school’s first finish over .500 since joining the WAC in 2006. The Aggies were 69-103 from 2006-08.

Help From Dad: Gary Ward, the father of Rocky, won 1,022 games as head coach at Oklahoma State (1978-96) and New Mexico State (2001-02). Gary is in his seventh year as Rocky’s hitting coach at New Mexico State.

Mike Sodders

Leaving Las Cruces: The Aggies will have to replace two outstanding hitters in 2010 with the departure of seniors Bryan Marquez and Richard Stout. Marquez was second in the WAC with a .414 average, led the conference with 83 runs, 171 total bases, 85 RBI and a .795 slugging average and was third in homers with 22. Stout led the league in SB with 23, was third in runs with 73 and hit .346.

Aggie Accolade:  Mike Sodders is one of just three WAC players (along with Fresno State’s Dusty Robinson and Louisiana Tech’s Devon Dageford) named as a preseason All-American.  Sodders, a junior infielder, hit a WAC-best .422 last year with 13 homers and 68 RBI.

Sacramento State

2009 Record: (27-27, 8-14)

Mascot: Hornets

Head Coach: John Smith

Location: Sacramento, Calif.

Vitals: .317 BA, 389 R, 63 HR, 60 SB, .968 Fld% . . . 6.33 ERA, 11 SV, 318 SO, 209 BB.

Captain John Smith: The Hornets coach spent three years in the United States Army Special Forces as a Green Beret before becoming a coach.

Big League Presence: Former San Francisco Giants and California Angels pitcher Jim Barr is in his 16th season as Smith’s pitching coach at Sacramento State.

Helping Out The WAC: Sacramento State is an affiliate member of the Western Athletic Conference in baseball because three full-time WAC schools (Boise State, Idaho, Utah State) do not have a baseball team.

Arms Leader: Jesse Darrah was named a Freshman All-American after going 9-2 with a 5.64 ERA in 2009. He is the first Hornet freshman in history to win nine games and he did not lose a decision after March 7.

The Power Of Versatility:  Josh Powers (.358, 44 RBI) started games at four different positions (3B, SS, C, 2B) and was one of four Hornets to start all 54 games in 2009 and was sixth in nation with 26 doubles.

Help On The Way: The Hornets are expected to get pitchers Jose Ramirez (senior left-hander) and Trevor York (senior right-hander) back this season from injury. Ramirez and York combined to start 27 games in 2008 and just one in 2009.

San Jose State

2009 Record: (41-20, 15-7)

Mascot: Spartans

Head Coach: Sam Piraro

Location: San Jose, Calif.

Vitals: .339 BA, 472 R, 43 HR, 36 SB, .978 Fld% . . . 4.66 ERA, 17 SV, 453 SO, 210 BB.

Pitching And Defense: The Spartans led the WAC in ERA (4.66), strikeouts (453), saves (20) and allowed the fewest hits (546) and unearned runs (27) in 2009. They also led the conference in fielding percentage (.978) and made the fewest errors (51).

Family Affair: Junior 1B Breyon Canez is the cousin of junior outfielder

Danny Stienstra

Kolton Klauer and senior infielder Karson Klauer. All three graduated from San Beinto HS in Hollister, Calif.

Putting Bat On Ball: Junior infielder Danny Stienstra was the sixth toughest hitter to strike out in the nation last year (once every 23.4 at-bats). Stienstra hit .337 with 27 RBI and fanned just eight times (27 walks) in 187 at-bats. Stienstra tied Nevada’s Westley Moss for finishing the season with the most at-bats without hitting a home run.

Young Spartans: San Jose State has just three seniors (Karson Klauer, Corey Valine and Alex Sofranec) on its roster this year.

Top Talent Lost: The Spartans sent seven players to professional baseball off its 2009 team: catcher Anthony Aguilera (Rockies), infielder Kyle Bellows (Indians) and pitchers David Berner (Astros), Max Peterson (A’s), Trevor Gibson (Rockies), Ryan Shopshire (Blue Jays) and Jack Adams (Royals).

Taking One For The Team: Outfielder Jason Martin led the WAC and was third in the nation last year by getting hit with a pitch 25 times. Martin was fifth in WAC with 86 runs scored and 12th in hitting (.376).

2010 WAC Predictions

WAC Player of Year: Devon Dageford – Louisiana Tech

WAC Pitcher of Year: Daniel Simon – New Mexico State

Conference Champion: Fresno State

(By Collegebaseball360.com contributor Joe Santoro)

Defending WAC Champs To Play 30 Of 56 Games At Home

San Jose State Head Coach Sam Piraro

56 games, 36 will be against teams with a .500 or better overall record in 2009.
Complete 2010 San Jose State Schedule
Piraro, the four-time WAC Coach of the Year who has earned that distinction in back-to-back seasons, leads San Jose State into Moraga, Calif., to begin the new campaign at Saint Mary’s College on Friday afternoon, February 19. First pitch at Louis Guisto Field is at 2:00 p.m.

The Spartans open the home schedule the following day against the same Saint Mary’s Gaels, at 1:00 p.m. inside San Jose Municipal Stadium, with the three-game set against their area rivals concluding back in Moraga on Sunday, February 21, also at 1:00 p.m.

The Spartans host UC Santa Barbara of the Big West Conference for three to close the month of February. San Jose State welcomes West Coast Conference rival USF for the home leg of its annual two-game set with the Dons on Tuesday night, March 2, at 6:00 p.m. inside Muni.

This year’s three-game series with South Bay foe Santa Clara will see two games at the Broncos’ Stephen Schott Stadium around a 1:00 p.m. meeting at Muni on Saturday, March 6.

After a home date with Southern Illinois on Wednesday night, March 10, San Jose State is proud to co-host the inaugural Jack Gifford Memorial Tournament with Santa Clara, March 11-14. Five of the games are set to take place at Municipal Stadium, including a neutral-site match-up between Air Force and UC Davis to kick things off on March 11. The final day will have the Spartans in action twice, against Air Force at 11:00 a.m. and UC Davis at 3:00 p.m.

On the weekend of March 19-21, San Jose State travels by bus down to Cal State Bakersfield for a three-game set. After a mid-week home contest against UC Davis, the Spartans take on another Big West opponent in Pacific three times, March 26-28, with the first two in San Jose.

A three-game home series with BYU of the Mountain West Conference begins the month of April for San Jose State. That leads into a season-long six-game road stretch which starts at USF, goes through Ruston, La., and ends at UC Davis with a third attle against the Aggies.

The WAC portion of the 2010 schedule opens at Louisiana Tech for four games, April 9-11. The WAC slate, for a second year in a row, features 24 games, with 12 at home and 12 on the road.

New Mexico State heads into town for a four-games-in-four-days league set, April 16-19. All four contests will thus be of the regulation nine-inning variety, whereas nightcaps of the usual WAC doubleheaders will again go seven frames in 2010. The first two meetings with the Aggies, who, like the Spartans, notched 40-plus wins a year ago only to get left out of the NCAA post-season, will be day affairs at Blethen Field, with the last two, including a Monday night finale, at Muni.

That series will set the stage for a much-anticipated appearance in Wichita, Kan., and Eck Stadium-Home of Tyler Field for three games against one of college baseball’s more storied programs in long-time head coach Gene Stephenson’s Wichita State Shockers, April 23-25. The two schools have never before met in baseball.

San Jose State welcomes retiring 32nd-year head coach John Smith’s Sacramento State Hornets to Blethen Field for all four games of their league match-up, April 30-May 2, before travelling up the freeway to take on the Stanford Cardinal on Tuesday, May 4.

What follows is a bus trip to Reno, Nev., and Peccole Park, home of the Nevada Wolf Pack, May 7-9. The home-and-home with Stanford concludes at Municipal Stadium on Wednesday night, May 12, at 6:00 p.m. The Spartans round out the WAC road schedule with another bus ride south to Fresno, Calif., for four games with the rival Bulldogs of Fresno State, May 14-16.

For the fifth successive year, the Spartans finish the regular season in San Jose, but after completing it three straight times against Nevada, the Rainbows of the University of Hawai’i pay a visit in 2010. All four games will be played at Muni, with Senior Day slated for a 1:00 p.m. first pitch on Sunday, May 23.

The 2010 season will be the first in a three-year agreement to hold the WAC Tournament at a neutral site, Hohokam Park, the spring training home of the Chicago Cubs, in Mesa, Ariz. The six-team, double-elimination tournament takes place May 26-30.

The 64-team NCAA Championship starts with 16 four-team Regionals, June 4-7. The eight two-team Super Regionals will be held at campus sites, June 11-14, with the 2010 Men’s College World Series set once again for Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, Neb., June 19-30.

San Jose State went 41-20 a year ago and won the WAC regular-season championship, its first league title since the 2000 team shared the crown on its way to the program’s first College World Series. The 2010 campaign marks the 10-year anniversary of that achievement, when the Spartans won an identical 41 contests, tied for the third-best total in program history.

Over the past three seasons, the Spartans have produced the most wins and best overall record among the nine Division I baseball programs in Northern California. They have gone 106-71 for a winning percentage of .599, finishing ahead of those nine squads in two of the last three years with marks of 41-20 (.672) in 2009 and 34-26 (.567) in 2007. Stanford is 99-77-2 (.562) while fellow Pacific-10 Conference contender California is 86-76-2 (.530) during this three-year span, with UC Davis, Pacific, Sacramento State, Saint Mary’s, USF and Santa Clara all finding lesser amounts of success since the start of the 2007 season.

“I feel that the schedule is very challenging,” commented Piraro, now in his 23rd season. “I don’t see a series or opponent that we’re going to be successful against if we don’t perform at our best. We face a lot of California teams, and people know that there are no weak teams in California. We have a difficult travel schedule, with some great opponents. Obviously, the one that might catch more attention than others is Wichita State. To me, it’s a regular series, but of course it is a great opportunity for our players to go back to the Midwest and compete in an environment and setting in which college baseball is really big. The crowds will be large, but that’s not to take away from any of the other non-conference opponents that we are playing.

“We have our (Jack Gifford Memorial) tournament, we play UC Santa Barbara at home, which will be a great series, we have the series with Santa Clara, we have a series with Saint Mary’s, USF, Pacific, UC Davis, we go to Cal State Bakersfield, and BYU comes in for a series in April, just prior to starting conference.

“We open up the conference schedule at Louisiana Tech, which is one of the most challenging travel venues in college baseball. We are going to have home series against New Mexico State and Sacramento State. We have to go on the road to Nevada and Fresno State, which is a large task, and end the regular season with Hawai’i at home.

“We have a tremendous challenge in front of us (to repeat). Winning the championship last year was a great accomplishment, but we lost almost our entire pitching staff. We return just four wins out of 41. We are really going to have to develop these pitchers through January and February in preparation for the new season, because we have a daunting task ahead. That’s not to be negative, but it is pragmatic. This time last year, we were very confident that we had the makings of an experienced team, which carries a lot of weight in college baseball. We no longer have that in the pitching ranks. It’s inexperienced, it’s young, it’s unproven, and that’s an area where I would prefer not to be unproven.

“The positive is that the future is going to be very good, because these young men are going to get some great experience through their process of maturing, and could be a quality unit within a year. My goal is to have them develop quicker. That is our objective.

“The schedule will be demanding and unrelenting,” concluded Piraro. “Every competition is going to demand our ultimate excellence on the field. We need to stay healthy, and we need to develop our pitching staff as we go along.”

(Release)