PHSC baseball stops just shy of World Series

Last year, the Pasco-Hernando State College baseball team reached the World Series for the first time in the program’s 23-year existence.

This year, the team fell just short of making back-to-back trips.

PHSC reached the National Junior College Athletic Association Division II Southeast District championship game last month at its tournament in Martinsville, Virginia.

The third-ranked Conquistadors faced off against the top-ranked Catawba Valley Community College Red Hawks.

A win would have meant a tie-breaking rematch with the same team, with the winner earning a berth in the NJCAA DII World Series.

PHSC battled back from an early 5-0 deficit to cut the lead to 5-3, but couldn’t keep up with Catawba Valley and fell, 13-3.

They had lost to the same team by a 3-2 margin earlier in the tournament.

The Red Hawks would go on to finish third in the World Series, in Enid, Oklahoma, while PHSC went home.

But barely missing another World Series trip, while disappointing, doesn’t diminish what the team accomplished in coach Steve Winterling’s eyes.

“Besides just falling short of the World Series, I couldn’t have been happier with the way the guys played and fought all year,” he said.

They fought with defensive skills more than anything else, Winterling explained.

In some years, hot bats that compensate for average pitching define a team.

This season, the Conquistadors weren’t knocking everything out of the park, but their pitching and defense were strong and kept them in many games.

Some statistics tell the story: PHSC recorded a school-record .972 fielding percentage, and committed just 51 errors all season. Some years they’ve had twice as many errors, and the fielding percentage is normally a good 18 points lower or more.

While they didn’t have their strongest offensive year, Winterling said there’s no question which type of team he’d rather have.

“I’d definitely take what we had this year. It was a pleasure watching young kids pick it up, throw it over and make plays,” he said. “This club made the routine play, they turned double plays, they ran balls down. It was fun to watch them play and not worry if the ball was hit.”

Even when opponents hit the ball, it usually wasn’t enough to win the game. PHSC finished 32-15 on the year and had little trouble qualifying for the Southeast District Tournament, which required a .500 or better record during the regular season. The team started the year 11-3, and a particularly strong nine-game win streak in March saw PHSC score 75 runs while recording five shutouts.

Their record became just one of a handful of 30-win seasons the team has logged in their 24 years, and is better than last year’s World Series team.

Once the team qualified, the rest of the season was simply a tune-up for the tournament. There was a concern that the players would ease up and not take the games as seriously, Winterling admitted, but they remained focused and played hard despite facing tough competition.

Besides playing far into the tournament, the team also traveled far during the tournament: What began in Kinston, North Carolina was completed more than 160 miles away in Martinsville.

Tropical Storm Ana forced the games to be moved.

The team had to scramble to find lodging, and ended up staying in multiple hotels over the course of the tournament.

“That was an amazing trip,” Winterling said. “Definitely one not to forget.”

Now that they’re back home, Winterling isn’t wasting any time getting ready for next season. He recently signed a catcher from Indianapolis and is working on bolstering the pitching staff.

Those players will be needed, considering PHSC will only have eight returning players plus a red shirt pitcher as holdovers. With around two dozen players making up a typical team, that means a lot of new faces.

Despite losing three of the team’s strongest pitchers, Winterling feels good about next season.

Some of the returning players are part of that stingy defense, and he identified Jordan Ding and Jordan Feist as part of a successful left infield that will be intact next season.

The coach believes they’ll form the nucleus of a team ready to extend the team’s successful streak.

And while he already has his sights set on the school’s 25th baseball season, Winterling is proud of what the team accomplished in Season 24.

“We just had a good group of guys. it was all about winning and playing well,” Winterling said.

Published June 10, 2015