KENTVILLE – Acadia’s baseball team is setting its sights on heading to nationals again this year, and its coach is feeling good about getting there.
Trevor Croteau has coached the team for the past four seasons, and has taken them to nationals twice. He says this year’s team is the most talented he’s ever seen at the university.
“This season is optimistic for that reason. There’s depth - there are probably two players in every position that are capable to play, and we’ve never had that before,” he says.
The team hosted its opening weekend in Kentville Sept. 8 and 9, playing against University of New Brunswick and University of Prince Edward Island.
The first series was a split – one win, one tie – which Croteau said came down to just two innings.
“It was well-played, and overall things went good – the pitching, and every aspect of the same. We just had two bad innings at the end, and it cost us,” he says.
The coach says there is no one thing the team is working on, and that the goal is to just keep getting better. It’s a young team, made up of many first and second-year players, but that doesn’t worry Croteau at all.
Team catcher Dylan McCarthy has played baseball for years in Kings County. He says it feels like no transition at all going from local baseball to the university level.
“I play here during the summer, so it’s an easy transition going from that to fall ball,” he says.
He also feels confident his team will finish well in this season’s standings, and owes it to dedicated practice and hard work.
“We’ve been practicing well so far. We practice two days a week, work hard, and that preparing shows up in the games,” he said.
The school’s program is also young, and is currently in its fifth year. Croteau says it’s beginning to attract players from all over, with several of this year’s players hailing from as far as the United States and British Columbia.
He owes this to a supportive school, and a winning game plan.
“We never stop working, and we’re looking forward to taking this to nationals again this year. You build a program not only on winning, but winning is a very big part of it,” he says.
“When they can see you at national tournaments a couple of years in a row, it works.”
