BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – After the Hilltoppers ended last season in the NCAA Regionals for the second straight year, thoughts immediately turned to how to make it three straight trips to the postseason and a regional championship in 2010.
With some of the key players from the record-breaking 2009 season having graduated or moved on to professional baseball, the Hilltoppers will have to form a new identity this season.
“This year’s team is a completely different team than last year’s, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be better,” WKU head coach
Chris Finwood said. “We’ll just be a different type of club.”
With the graduations of Terrence Dayleg, Matt Hightower, Jeremy
Coleman, J.B. Paxson and Chad Cregar and the loss of Wade Gaynor to the
Major League Baseball First-Year Players Draft, WKU lost 72 percent of
its home runs and 53 percent of its runs scored from a year ago.
Even though this group is no longer with the program, its impact will be felt around Hilltopper baseball for years to come. With 75 wins the past two seasons, plus both a Sun Belt Conference regular-season and tournament championship and two trips to the NCAA Tournament, the pieces are in place for WKU to maintain a prominent place in the collegiate baseball world.
“I like where our guys are at and what they are doing,” Finwood said. “This team will have to learn how to win, where last year’s team knew how to win. When you have a lot of new guys that’s what you have to do.”
Winning was plentiful last season, as Finwood’s squad posted a 42-20 overall record and a 21-8 mark in Sun Belt Conference play, good for a share of the conference championship. The team was also an outstanding 27-3 at home. For their efforts in 2009, including winning three games and advancing to the championship game of the NCAA Oxford Regional, the Hilltoppers were ranked 23rd in the final poll by Collegiate Baseball.
As the fall practice season winds down, Finwood says he likes the direction the program is heading and does not expect the shift in the makeup of this year’s team to affect the squad negatively.
“Our pitching across the board will be better, and since we lost a lot of power from last year’s team we’ll have to manufacture some runs,” Finwood explained. “But we’re capable of doing it.”
“Ten About ‘10” Series Continues Wednesday: The “Ten About ‘10” feature series detailing for fans 10 aspects of the 2010 WKU Hilltopper baseball team will continue on Wednesday with item number six. A different element of the 2010 Hilltoppers will be highlighted each weekday, leading up to the start of the Fall World Series on November 5. Item number one will be revealed on Wednesday, November 4. Keep checking the website each day to find out what’s ahead for the baseball team in 2010. If you missed any of the previous stories in the countdown, you can catch up by clicking on the links at the top of the page.
