As we approach the nicer weather, spring sports are officially underway. And with spring sports comes the start of the Berkley Bears varsity baseball season!
Led by head coach Matthew Rawlik, the Berkley varsity baseball team is looking to improve from a solid season last year. Living up to last year’s district-winning season, however, this will be a difficult task. But senior captain Logan Field is determined to make this season even more successful.
“Our goals for this season are to win districts because we won districts last year for the first time in fifteen years. Our other goal is to win our league, because last year, we shared the league title with Avondale and Royal Oak, so it would be awesome to be the only winners,” says Field, “The key to getting back to districts is being consistent. Last year, down the stretch, we were really good. We played great defense and had solid pitching, and defense wins baseball games, so if we’re able to do that again, I think we can win districts again.”
Field also says that pitching is the strongest aspect of the Bears’ varsity team. The pitching staff is led by Field alongside other senior captain Ben Streetman. Streetman, a Henry Ford college commit for baseball, recently broke the 100-career strikeouts statistic, solidifying himself as one of the strongest arms on the team. Senior pitcher Thomas Dauphin is also committed to college for baseball. He will be attending Olivet College and is another one of the important pieces in Berkley’s pitching rotation.
One of the other major goals that Field highlighted is winning their Comerica Park game. Last year, Berkley had the privilege of playing a game at Comerica Park, but unfortunately lost. This year, the Bears have a chance to redeem that as they head back to Comerica on May 5th and 7 p.m. They will take on Detroit Country Day School and hope to take home a victory, which would result in Comerica playing an incredible light show with the Berkley colors.
Field believes that this team can truly contend for something special. “We’ve grown a lot since the start of the year. You could tell in the first weeks of practice that everyone had some getting back nerves. People wanted to impress the coaches and do everything perfectly. Obviously, we still want to impress the coaches now, but you can tell that people are more comfortable with their roles on the team.” Field points to this growth as having an overall positive effect on the season and explains that easing into the season makes production in games much better.
“At the beginning of the year, it’s very easy to get ahead of yourself because you want to be the star player, but I think the team has grown as a whole in getting over individual goals. No one person is focused on just hitting a homerun or having a certain amount of strikeouts, which I think helps the team continue to grow.”
Field finishes by discussing the team’s first games and challenges regarding those. Berkley lost their first few games, but the cold and sometimes rainy conditions did not help the team to success. Once the weather warmed up, the team started to win, and Field believes that that will be the identity of the season moving forward.
