Oly Spartans Start Conference As #1 Seed
by Jeff Freitag and Mitch Birky, Torch Reporters
May 02, 2008
The ping of the bat has been in full force for the Olympia Spartan varsity baseball team this year. The overwhelming success of the team has lead them to a 19 and 6 record and the capture of the regular season championship of the CornBelt Conference.
The conference tournament started Thursday, May 1st with the Spartans notching a compelling win over the Pontiac Indians. The Spartan baseball team has started in the conference tournament as the number 1 seed. They sealed up a first round victory besting the Pontiac Indians 5-2 Thursday night(May 1) at Horenberger field at Illinois Wesleyan University.
Olympia now plays the Central Catholic Saints in a semi-final match up at 4pm Friday night (May 2). If the Spartans make their way through the championship, it would be their second straight CornBelt conference championship. If the boys prevail, they advance to play Saturday, May 3, at 7pm against the winner of the University High Pioneers and the Mahomet-Seymour Bulldogs. This game will be played at Wesleyan as well if the weather cooperates throughout the weekend.
“We’ve had a lot of fun this year,” said senior pitcher Jacob Hadsall, “I’m really looking forward to the CornBelt championship and going on to regionals.”
Coach Smith has led the team to a 19-6 record so far and has the boys playing the best baseball of the season. The Spartans haven’t lost a game since the heartbreaker against IVC in Chillicothe on April 24th. The game was a 1-0 pitching duel between Logan Leesman and the IVC ace Chris Razo. The game came down to them being able to produce a run and the Spartans being unable to get anything going on the offensive side.
Although they didn’t come out on top, the boys are using this game as motivation for the rest of the season, and hope to meet IVC later on down the road at the state tournament in Joliet.
