The St. Andrews University baseball team is having a strong start to the season. With their Appalachian Athletic Conference opener set for Friday, the Knights have an 11-7 overall record.
They’ve had several noteworthy individual performances so far. The most impressive outings have come from left-handed ace Davis O’Brien, who has recorded shutouts in each of his four starts to date. O’Brien hasn’t allowed a run in 28 innings of work, and he’s tallied 41 strikeouts in that span. Even on his worst days, opponents have a hard time hitting O’Brien’s pitches. That was the case on Saturday, when O’Brien threw a two-hitter in an 8-0 win against Marian University. O’Brien tallied six strikeouts and four walks against Marian.
“Today, to be honest with you, he’s probably had his worst stuff that he’s had,” St. Andrews coach Andy Fox said. “He couldn’t throw his curveball for a strike. He’s just a competitor. He throws strikes. He’s going to do whatever he can to challenge hitters.
“We tell our guys, you’ve got to throw strikes,” Fox added. “If you walk people and stuff like that, you’re not going to be very successful. That’s one thing he does a great job of, throwing strikes.”
The Knights have also gotten solid outings from several other pitchers, notably Nate Moretz, Jonathan Crowe and Brent Kline. Offensively, the Knights are hitting .295 as a team. The team’s collective on-base percentage is .392.
The Knights have had some success on offense, and they haven’t reached their full potential yet.
“I’ve been a little frustrated with them because we’ve really got a lot of talent offensively, and I don’t think we’ve really shown it so far. I think we’ve shown flashes of it, just not consistently,” Fox said. “If our pitching keeps doing what it’s doing and our defense is playing well, and our offense can do what they’re capable of doing, I think we’ve got a chance to be pretty good.”
The Knights have done well enough to enter conference play with a winning record. They just split a four-game series with Marian, a regional qualifier last season.
“I wanted to play them the last weekend before we actually go into conference to help us prepare,” Fox said. “Hopefully it pays off for us.”
The Knights will need to be focused and ready to go when they open conference play at Milligan College on Friday. They’ll certainly need to avoid a repeat of what happened last season. The Knights had some momentum after winning nine of their first 10 non-conference games, but they went on to finish 6-21 in conference play.
Fox said the Knights’ schedule has progressively gotten more difficult this season, and he thinks that will help the Knights as they enter league play. The team is aware that the competition — and, in some cases, the weather — will only get tougher going forward.
“We’re looking ahead as far as the weather goes,” Fox said. “The forecast next Friday in Johnson City is supposed to be a high of 35 and a low of about 22, and we’ve got a 6 p.m. game on Friday night.”
The Knights’ roster is full of up-and-coming talent. If the Knights are able to use that talent effectively, expect them to make some big moves in the AAC.
