IWU Recap
A year ago, I wrote about a team exceeding expectations.
That was after an NCAA Regional Championship by Illinois Wesleyan’s baseball team, who then went on to win the NCAA Division III national championship a week later.
The same Illinois Wesleyan team saw their 2011 team end with a third place finish in the regional last weekend. It’s a hard reality considering the Cinderella finish of a year ago, but again, it’s expectations that dictate the emotional response.
“I guess maybe the bar was set so high last year that you just don’t know what to accept,” Dennis Martel told WJBC radio shortly after the elimination loss.
“I didn’t know going into this year after the championship what we were going to do and how we were going to do it. I’ve always said I’m a conference championship guy – we get a trophy and our name goes down for 2011 – it will be there forever and ever, and I’m okay with that.”
“We won the conference [tied with North Park] and finished 3rd in the region. If I knew we were going to do that every year I’d be happy,” Martel added.
From the cheap seats, I felt the National Championship brought not only an escalated level of respect from opponents – many celebrated victories against the Titans like they’d won the World Series themselves – but it also instilled a level of confidence among IWU players that wasn’t always there before.
They’ve been to the top of the mountain – no other CCIW baseball team has ever won a national championship – and that seemed to translate into an innate confidence among the players.
Still, I left the park disappointed after the final loss, not elated with finish, but disappointed a return to the World Series didn’t happen.
Shame on me. For a team that lost 16 pitching victories and 129 runs batted in from graduating seniors, it’s easy to argue they exceeded expectations again.
“I think our kids really did a great job this year handling the pressure of being the defending champions,” Martel told WJBC. “We won the conference and finished 3rd in the region. If I knew we were going to do that every year I’d be happy.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Titan Player Accolades
********************
CCIW All Conference
| First Team | Second Team |
| Jason Pankau (Sr) – Pitcher* | Nick Mehn (So) – Pitcher |
| Kevin Callahan (So) – First Base** | |
| Joe Sweeney (Jr) – Pitcher | |
| * CCIW Pitcher of the Year | |
| ** CCIW Co-Player of the Year | |
Rawlings/ABCA All-Central Region |
|
| First Team | Second Team |
| Jason Pankau (Sr) – Pitcher* | Nick Mehn (So) – Pitcher |
| Kevin Callahan (So) – First Base | |
| Third Team | |
| Bobby Czarnowski (Fr) – Designated Hitter | |
| A.J. Nathan (So) – Catcher | |
| Johnathan Erickson (Fr) – Second Base | |
| * Central Region Pitcher of the Year | |
D3baseball.com 2011 All-American Team |
|
| Third Team | |
| Jason Pankau (Sr) – Pitcher | |
| Honorable Mention | |
| Kevin Callahan – First Base |
