Baseball: Falcons take step forward in 2008

The UTPB baseball team proved that despite scholarship limitations, a team can be successful at the NCAA Division II level.

The Falcons set school records in victories, conference victories and home runs while finishing with the best home record in the Heartland Conference.

They did all of that, despite having just 3 1/2 scholarships to offer.

"I'm not complaining," head coach Brian Reinke said. "I think we did a very good job with the amount of money we had. As (the money) hopefully increases, the program will hopefully get better. I'd hope this is the minimum of where we are every year."

The Falcons' winning percentage of .625 was the second best by a UTPB team this school year, behind only the conference winning volleyball team.

The 35 wins were 15 more than the previous high set by the baseball team, which won 20 in 2007.

"It was definitely not the most talented team, but we had some really good players," Reinke said. "Our lack of depth may have cost us two or three wins throughout the year, though."

The Falcons will lose seven players from the 2008 team, including team co-MVP Will Basom. Also departing are Mario Barredo, Eric Gutierrez, Brent Hardy, Danny Frisbee, Corey Roberson and Chance Bruno.

While the Falcons lose a lot of talent, they do have Logan Forrest (second in home runs), Derek Dibbens, Robert Leigh and Flynn Stachowski (led team in ERA) returning.

Plus, they hope to have a quality recruiting class.

"Winning hasn't necessarily made recruiting easier, but the pool of players willing to come here is bigger," Reinke said. "We will always run into depth issues because it is tough to get freshman because of the great junior colleges around here.

"We need to have a little more balance there, though. We had the seven seniors and only two true freshmen."

While Reinke worries about finding more underclassmen to play for his Falcons, the 2008 team can sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labor.

"The seniors came here knowing anything and everything they did positive leaves a footprint on the history of this program," Reinke said.

So, if Reinke has his way and the coming years mean even more success, then the 2008 Falcons will be the ones that will be credited with starting it.