Tyler Davis
FROM CBB NEWS SOURCE
In a little over a week McNeese State’s baseball team will kickoff its season and Coach Terry Burrows already has a pretty good idea about his pitching staff…..who’s going to be good for starting assignments, who can be counted on for middle relief duty and who for late inning relief.
“One thing is for sure,” he said early in the week. “We’ve got more quality arms. The ones coming back are throwing a lot better and then we’ve also added some good arms.”
Pitching was one of the down areas for the Cowboys last season and Burrows, who himself was a top collegiate pitcher during his career at McNeese, sees it on the upswing this year.
The race for pitching status on the team this spring has been close according to the coach.
Right now he’s looking at holdovers Tyler Davis, Jonathan Conrad and Ryan Frantz along with newcomer Tommy Luce in the battle for starting roles on the weekend.
But, he said that he was also getting quality workouts from newcomers Ross Olson and Jordan LeGros.
“Some, we’re looking at coming out of the bull pen and some could also get starts in the middle of the week,” he said.
LeGros, who can get into the 90s with his fast ball, could claim the Cowboy closing job and other hurlers like freshmen Jaden Dillon and Trey Brown, returnees Michael Robbins, Matt Click, Scott Holstein, Todd Fontenot and Travis Bailey as well as newcomer Daniel Martin are all in the mix for relief and middle week starting roles.
Davis, Conrad, Frantz and Holstein were the main starters last season, Davis posting a 3-9 mark with a 5.42 ERA, Conrad going 1-6 with a 7.98, Frantz a 1-6 with an 8.27 ERA and Holstein a 2-7 with an 8.87.
Davis struckout 81 batters in 91 innings last year and claimed a victory over then No.24 Oral Roberts. Conrad posted a 2.25 ERA in conference games only and Frantz hurled the second most innings on the team last year, 62.
Holstein is coming off an outstanding summer of baseball, having been a standout in the Hawaii Collegiate League where he was 5-0 with a 1.20 ERA.
Luce, who has been drafted, comes in with solid credentials from Seminole Community College and brings in a quick moving sinker. He was 7-4 with 10 saves and a 3.34 ERA in two seasons at the junior college.
Olson is out of Western Oklahoma State and was 9-0 with a 3.20 ERA last year while LeGros was 2-1 with a 2.70 ERA at Bossier Parish Community College.
Dillon played for former Cowboy MVP Billy Bryant at Bridge City (TX) High and was 6-1 last season, Brown won 30 games and threw a no-hitter during his prep career at DeQuincy and Barbe High Schools, Robbins, who has been drafted twice, pitched the Cowboys to victory over TAM-Corpus Christi last year and Click made 19 appearances in relief.
Fontenot got in 18 games last year and picked up a victory over Southeastern Louisiana and Bailey beat Northwestern State.
Martin, who at 6-8 could be the tallest of the hurlers in the Southland Conference this season, has been drafted by both the New York Mets and the Pittsburgh Pirates and struckout 27 batters in 24 innings with Panola Junior College last year.
In a breakdown of righthanders and lefthanders, this year’s squad has three (Davis, Robbins, Olson) who throw from the left side and 11 from the right side.
The Cowboys open their season Feb. 20 at home against Houston Baptist.
