Coming off four consecutive trips to the NCAA Division III tournament, the Emory University Baseball program looks to continue the postseason trend as the 2018 season begins this Saturday, February 3rd with a doubleheader at Piedmont College. The Lions were picked to finish second in the USA South behind defending champion LaGrange College.
Note: Due to the impending inclement weather on Sunday afternoon, Emory's scheduled home opener against Piedmont has been cancelled. The two teams will now play a doubleheader instead of a single game on Saturday with first pitch of game one set for 1:00 PM in Demorest, GA.
Head Coach Mike Twardoski Previews the 2018 Season
Despite losing a talented senior class from last year's roster that reached the NCAA Regionals and finished 27-14 overall, this year's Mike Twardoski-led squad carries a strong mix of returners and newcomers including Preseason All-American Billy Dimlow, and 2017 All-UAA selections in seniors Bubby Terp, Nick Chambers and UAA Rookie of the Year Richard Brereton.
Coaching Staff
Head Coach Mike Twardoski returns for his 19th season in Atlanta and carries an overall coaching ledger of 541-250-1. In his previous 18 years with the program, he has guided the Eagles to six NCAA Division III World Series appearances, six NCAA regional championships, 11 NCAA tournament berths and 10 conference championships. Long-time Associate Coach, Bobby Perez, returns for his 10th season with the team while first-year coaches Ryan Mossman and Sean West round out the coaching staff.
Pitching Staff
The Emory pitching staff, which has been a major strength in recent years, will take on a much different look in 2018. Dimlow, a First Team Preseason All-America selection by D3Baseball.com, will miss at least the first few weeks of the season due to injury. He was coming off a stellar sophomore season in which he went 6-2 with a 1.03 earned run average, 83 strikeouts in 74.0 innings pitched and was named a First Team All-American last spring. Brereton, who was 4-1 with a 2.48 ERA in 14 appearances including a pair of starts last year, will presumably move into the team's #1 spot in the rotation in Dimlow's absence.
In addition to Dimlow and Brereton, the Eagles staff will feature senior Rhett Stuart as a stabilizer in the back end of the bullpen. Stuart made 12 appearances with one start as a junior, compiling a 4.91 ERA and 16 strikeouts in 18.1 innings pitched.
Catching
Sophomore Jacob Greene, a transfer from Georgia Southern University, appeared to be in line as a big contributor for the team's catching duties but suffered a broken hand during an intrasquad contest and will be on the shelf for the time-being. Senior Mitch Kerner, who made 19 appearances with 16 starts and had a .993 fielding percentage in 2017, will most likely see the majority of playing time for the Eagles with junior Eric Terry, sophomore David Shore and freshmen Jack Rubenstein and Caleb Shulman vying for playing time behind the dish.
Infield
Terp and Chambers headline the returning infielders for the Eagles in 2018. Terp batted .318 with eight doubles, two home runs and drove in 31 runs as he earned the first All-Association honor of his career. Chambers was one of two Eagles to play in at least 40 games, making 39 total starts, and hit at a .317 clip and led the team with 33 runs scored and 12 stolen bases. Juniors NJ Kim and Thomas Baumgartner both appeared in at least 23 games a year ago while hitting .270 and .257, respectively while Brereton and sophomores Ryan Adelman and Christopher Stern figure to be other returners to see an increase in playing time around the infield.
Outfield
Junior David Draper is the lone returning starter from Emory's outfield core as the Eagles look to replace valuable production lost from the two corner spots. Draper appeared in 38 games last season with 32 starts and batted .288 with one home run, 15 RBI and a pair of stolen bases. Seniors Danny Kerning (.333 average in 12 GP), Josh Rosenblatt (14 GP, 3 GS in 2017), juniors Michael Wilson (.357 average in 14 GP), Jackson Grayson (30 GP in 2017) and freshmen Drew Bartholow and Michael Edelman are just a handful of names in the outfield mix for the Eagles this season.
Schedule
Emory's 2018 slate is USA South heavy to begin the year with four of the first five opponents hailing from the USAS. Emory opens the season Super Bowl weekend against Piedmont before taking on 10th-ranked LaGrange College on Tuesday, February 6th. Following matchups against the Lions and Panthers, the Eagles play Covenant in the first three-game series of the year on February 9th and 10th, including a doubleheader at Chappell Park on the 10th which serves as the Eagles' home opener. Emory then hosts crosstown foe Oglethorpe University on February 13th before closing out the calendar's shortest month with a five-game road trip against NC Wesleyan, Berry and 7th-ranked Birmingham-Southern.
March features six contests in the friendly confines of Chappell Park against Adrian, Berry, Stevens Institute, Middlebury and Birmingham-Southern and five away from Atlanta including the opening UAA series at Case Western Reserve during the final weekend of the month.
The Eagles round out the regular season in April with a UAA-centric slate including 12 games against Washington University, Brandeis University and NYU and four non-conference matchups against Oglethorpe and Huntingdon.