Baseball 2/21/2008 12:00:00 AM Canisius College Athletics

Baseball Opens Season This Weekend

The season preview will continue on Thursday with a look at the pitching staff and on Friday with a look at the position players

The momentum started with the exciting nine-game home winning streak and dramatic qualification for the MAAC Tournament.

The energy carried throughout the offseason in summer leagues, fall practice and winter conditioning.

Now the expectations have been set by the first-place projection from the league's coaches.

The Canisius College baseball program wouldn't want it any other way.

“The expectations for our program have been set very high, and they haven't been set by the coaching staff. The goals for our squad are player and team driven,” fourth-year coach Mike McRae said. “Our goals demand a higher work ethic than this program has seen during my tenure and I feel the players have met that.”

In 2007, the Griffs won 11 of their last 15 league games, including the last nine at the Demske Sports Complex, to finish with a 13-12 MAAC record. Their berth to the MAAC Tournament came when the Griffs swept Niagara and Manhattan took two of three from Saint Peter's on the last weekend of the regular season.

Canisius returns 19 letterwinners, including all nine starting position players and the top three starting pitchers, from a team that went 20-35 and qualified for the MAAC Tournament for the second time in program history and for the first time since 1994.

“We're excited to get the season started,” McRae said. “I like our schedule and like the depth of our squad. I think as the preseason poll showed, this is a wide-open league in 2008.”

SCHEDULE
The Griffs open with their first 24 games away from the Demske Sports Complex, but then play 13 of 19 at home. The non-conference schedule also isn't as difficult as in previous seasons with SEC powerhouses Alabama and Kentucky not on the slate.

Canisius will open with four neutral-site games in Gastonia, N.C. ? three against Long Island and one against St. Bonaventure. The Griffs then play four-game series at Appalachian State, Morehead State and Mount St. Mary's before playing a doubleheader at West Virginia March 18.

The Griffs then play a weekend three-game series at Le Moyne, who play this season as a Division I independent. After a doubleheader at Delaware State and then a single game against the New York Institute of Technology, the Griffs open their home schedule with a three-game series against Siena March 29.

Other non-conference games include Buffalo, St. Bonaventure and Cleveland State, along with the Big Four at the end of April, which Canisius has won the past two seasons.

“We scheduled more realistically, and aren't playing some of the top programs in the country, which served a purpose for our program at the time,” McRae said. “This schedule gives a veteran and more experienced team a better chance at getting off to a good start.”

OUTLOOK
Four years ago, Canisius was 4-43, finished in 10th place in the MAAC with a 4-23 conference record and was ranked 292 of 293 teams in the country.

Now, the Griffs are coming off their most successful season in more than 10 years and are the preseason favorite to win the conference championship. The mindset of the program has changed quickly.

“Our first full recruiting class is now juniors, and we have some upperclassman additions of players who have played a lot of games and understand what it takes to play consistently at the top level of the conference,” McRae said. “That's a big factor.”

Last season after getting swept at home in a doubleheader to St. Bonaventure, with the Bonnies taking the second game 11-5, the Griffs were 7-27 with 15 conference games left, nine of those at home.

They responded by going 11-4 in those games and 9-0 at home. Three of those home wins came in the last at-bat against Saint Peter's, with two of them being walkoff home runs in extra innings.

That's where the momentum started, and now the team has to carry it over to 2008.

“I don't want our players to forget what it was like to get on a run,” McRae said. “We need to remember what it's like to win some games, how contagious it was and how much fun it was.”

The run fueled by those home victories took them to the program's second MAAC Tournament appearance in program history. The three other schools at the conference tournament had each won the conference title once in the last three seasons Marist (2005), Manhattan (2006) and Le Moyne (2007). That's why last season's postseason experience could prove to be invaluable should the Griffs get back to the MAAC Tournament.

Now the Griffs have to put all the pieces together ? experienced roster, conference success fueled by home-field advantage and postseason experience ? in order to win the program's first MAAC championship.

“It's very difficult to win the conference tournament in your first appearance,” McRae said. “This team's goal is to win it, not just get there.

“The players aren't talking about just making it.”

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