The Varsity Blues baseball team was one game shy of the fourth and final playoff berth this season, despite finishing the year on a three-game winning streak. Nosed out by Waterloo, who finished with 18 points on the strength of nine wins, the Blues wound up winning eight games with 16 points.
Notably, this season marked the second straight year that the team missed the playoffs by two points. They finished with 25 points, two behind McMaster, in the 2007-2008 baseball season. If the Blues’ playoff hunt was an instant replay of last year’s, someone hit the rewind button. A year ago, Waterloo finished a spot behind Toronto by a single point.
Despite the final result, the team can look back on several morale-boosting victories. The Blues won their season series with the eventual OUA champion McMaster Marauders, taking two of three games. The teams split a two game set at U of T’s Scarborough home field on Sept. 20, with the Blues dropping the first game of the double header 4-0 before picking up a 3-1 win in the afternoon game. They clinched the season series by notching a solid 7-4 win at Bernie Arbour Stadium in Hamilton to finish the season.
While the Blues didn’t get to enjoy the playoffs in the formal sense, their three-game winning streak at the end of the regular season felt like a playoff series due to a do-or-die element.
“The games were against the top-ranked OUA teams. The players stepped right up by playing near-perfect baseball. From the top to the bottom of the batting order the team was able to hit with runners in scoring position,” said Blues head coach Dan Lang. “We had several games rained-out, which meant playing without much rest in make-up games, and playing the top-ranked teams at the end.”
It is often said that baseball is an individual sport wrapped around team concepts. The team’s strong efforts were due in large part to the work of Mississauga native Marek Deska, named OUA’s Most Valuable Pitcher of the season. Deska is also a member of OUA’s first team all-stars, an honour shared with Blues’ outfielder Jamie Lekas who finished in a tie with McMaster’s Sean Lemon for the last outfield spot.
Deska demonstrated his team value when he strung together two exceptional late season performances to keep the Blues’ playoff hopes alive as the regular season dwindled away. He tossed a complete-game, two-hit shutout against the cellar-dwelling Guelph Gryphons on Oct. 1. Pitching on three days rest, Deska knocked off a more competitive opponent when he threw another eight innings of two-hit ball—allowing only a single run to score—against the playoff-bound second place Western Mustangs on October 5. Deska’s performance helped lead the Blues to a 3-1 upset over Western.
David Fallico was the Blues’ strongest offensive player this year, leading the team with a .360 batting average and .400 slugging percentage. He finished with a .450 on-base percentage, tying Lekas for the lead. Fallico also led the team with 18 hits, while his eight stolen bases left him tied with Michael Dahiroc.
Looking ahead to next year, Coach Lang saw several variables that could alter the team’s fate for better or worse. “[Next season] depends a lot on whether or not some players recover from injuries. The turn-over next year will be larger than usual, especially in pitching and the infield.”
