Matthew Riashi ’13 | Sports Editor

With the varsity baseball regular season winding down, Captain Jack Doyle ’13 is hoping that the varsity baseball team can get on the right track in time for playoffs.

“We have talent and with the coaching staff we have the privilege of playing under, it’s only a matter of time until we get hot,” said Doyle.

Early on in the season didn’t go as smoothly as planned, Doyle said. The team staggered out to a 5-8 start.

“We just never got the consistently we needed out of our pitchers,” said Doyle, “It is hard to win when that is not happening.”

After a 2-4 trip in Ohio, the team won their next two games against North and highly ranked Brother Rice.

“After those wins we got smacked by Dakota in our first MAC red series off the year,” said Doyle. “They came out hungrier than us.”

At the time the team was still working out some growing pains of having a young team, since then Doyle thinks the team has grown up a lot.

“We were young at the time, looking back that stretch is something that you can say helped us improve over the remainder of the season,” said Doyle, who is playing his third and final year on varsity.

But with a win against Liggett on Saturday, April 20, the season started to turn around.

A week later on Saturday April 27, South squared off again with Liggett in a game full of offense. South beat Liggett for the second time on the season, 10-9.

“They threw their ace against us, and it was awesome seeing how bad everyone wanted to beat him especially after hearing how good he is over and over again,” said Doyle. “Liggett had never seen him get hit the way he did that day.”

Later that day went on to beat North on a walk off hit by Carmen Benedetti ‘13 to win the invitational, 9-8.

“That hit against North was huge, not only was it a walk off, it also beat North,” said first year varsity baseball player Wade Penman, “Everyone went crazy.”

Overall this season the team is 14-13 and 5-5 in MAC red division games. Recently the team has won five of their last six games with a win against division leading Sterling Heights Stevenson and back to back wins against Chippewa Valley.

“We are getting consistent play from a lot of areas, right now,” said Doyle, “That for sure is why we have won five of six.”

Against Chippewa Valley on Monday, May 13 Doyle had a big day on the mound and Eddy Champane ’13 hit a grand slam to cap off an easy 6-1 victory over Chippewa Valley. Doyle totaled 15 strikeouts and had 14 K’s within the first 15 batters.

“He [Doyle] was lights out,” said Penman, “It was one of the best single performances I have seen so far this year.”

Two days later on Wednesday, May 15 South defeated Chippewa Valley again, 7-4, with strong play from George Fishback ’13, Brett Bigham ’14 and Andrew Eaton ’14. Eaton totaled two hits on the day.

Moving forward South has triple header on Saturday, May 18 and end the season with three games. On Monday, May 20 the team will travel to Orchard Lake St. Mary’s. Then they will end the season with two home games before the playoffs start, Wednesday, May 22 against U of D and Friday, May 24 against Warren De La Salle.

South hopes to continue their recent success into the playoffs, said Penman.

“We just need to continue playing like we are right now,” said Penman.

Pre-Districts start at North’s field on Tuesday, May 28.

“The rest of the season I want to see guys with intensity and a lot of energy,” said Doyle. “Nothing is more fun than playing for this school at this time of year. Everyone needs to cherish these moments, you’ll remember them for the rest of your life.”