Baseball team adapting to NCAA rules on practices

The baseball team is adapting to the NCAA’s stricter rules on practices during the offseason. (Photo by Candid Color, from snuathletics.com)

Matthew Wellman, staff writer

The switch to NCAA from NAIA has not only affected the fall sports, but has already affected winter and spring sports. Offseason schedules for every sport have been very different, including less practice time and workout time. The baseball team has had much less practice this fall than in years past when SNU was a member of the NAIA.

Each athletic team must now keep track of how many hours they practice and work out each week. The coaches keep a written log and the compliance office at SNU also chooses players from the team to keep track to make sure that coaches are being honest about the hours.

When SNU was a part of the NAIA, the baseball team would practice six days a week for most of the fall and then have workouts and conditioning in the weeks leading up to the end of the semester. This year has been a bit different. In the beginning weeks of the semester, they had conditioning three days a week and position practice two days a week. They were only allowed eight hours of practice each week, and six of those hours had to be conditioning.

“It’s definitely a different experience than playing in the NAIA,” said senior pitcher Matt Berry. “I can’t say whether it has been better or worse but it has been a little bit weird not practicing on the field every day.”

The team has now entered a period of 24 days where they can practice 20 hours a week. During this time, they can use those hours for whatever practice they want; whether it be conditioning or field practice. Once this time period has passed, they will go back to the previously mentioned eight hours per week.

“This whole NCAA thing is going to be a lot different,” said Berry. “It will be tough this year with all the road games that we will have to play and not being able to contend for a conference or national championship. I’m excited for this upcoming season though. We have a good team and should definitely be better than we were last year.”

The team looks to improve on last season that saw them go a disappointing 10 games under .500. The schedule has not yet been released for the 2013 season for the Crimson Storm baseball team, but will most likely begin in late February.