Welcome to the 2024 Potomac State Baseball player diary homepage. This season, Sophomores Ben McDougal (Bridgeport High School / Bridgeport, WV), and Kris Sutton (Cobb County High School / Calhoun, GA) will take the lead on the Potomac State Baseball Player Diary.
Welcome back Catamount fans for another addition to the Potomac State Player Diary. This year, a new rule for college baseball is that every field must include a fence in front of their dugout with a height no less than 3 feet. So, over the past few weeks, the coaching and maintenance staffs here at Potomac State College have gone to great lengths to provide us with this new fencing before games were to be played at Golden Park. The work doesn’t go unnoticed. With a few minor things left to be accomplished, Coach Little called down a few pitchers to get them done. Our role included getting excess dirt moved and leveling some of the gravel in front of the dugouts.
Continuing a Player Diary tradition, We went from door to door and did our own rendition of “Are You Smart than a 5th Grader.” I went around our dormitory to try and find as many guys on the team as I could to ask them questions that a person would presumably know. Questions such as “What galaxy is Earth located in? What war was the Battle of Gettysburg in? And what shape is a stop sign? Some of the guys tackled their questions with ease, and others...not so much.
As for the games, this week was an eventful one to say the least. If the guys on the team didn’t understand the saying from Bull Durham before this week, they sure do now. “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes it rains.” The quote couldn’t hold truer for our situation as our would be first home games of the year were inevitably cancelled due to inclement weather heading to Keyser. Weather always wins.
Thankfully, Coach Little made a few calls and before we knew it, we had plans set to travel down to Shenandoah University, a D3 in Winchester, VA. We played a double-header at the newly updated facility. When I say the facility is nice, that is an understatement. On top of that the Hornets are currently ranked #1 in the country. The program and the facility are both top-notch.
The first game, the bats came alive. 17 hits were sprayed across Kevin Anderson Field for the team that led to a 15-2 victory against the Hornets. Maddox Brooks (Waynesboro, PA) and Chris Harbert (Bridgeport, WV) were standout performers as Brooks went 3-4 driving in 2 and Harbert went 2-3, also adding 2 runs for game one.
As for the following game, the contest was a much closer one. We scraped away a hard fought 9-7 win. Some of the highlighted players of that game were Jimmy Sadler (Houston, PA) and Cam Cole (Bridgeport, WV) who had their bats rolling with the boys going 2-3 and 2-5 respectfully. Cooper Polcovich (Auburn, NY) also brought the closing piece we needed to finish off the sweep for the day. Out of the bullpen, Polcovich went 3.1 innings with 6 strikeouts and only allowing one run across.
Don’t let me forget to tell you about the real MVP of the day. Nik Rubendall out of East Norriton, Pennsylvania. The dude went 3-5 and 4-5 in the games and drove in 4 through the day. Seemed like the kid was absolutely allergic to getting out.
Thank you for tuning into this week's Player Diary and I hope you get a chance to watch the video version of this week as well.