History Teaches Us Not To Count Out Eagles' Baseball

Given the way the baseball team played through its four-game losing streak, there is little chance even the brightest of optimists could see a happy ending for the season. The team wasn’t hitting with runners in scoring position, wasn’t getting quality starts and looked every bit the defeated bunch.

It was, by many accounts, a lost season.

Until it wasn’t.

The Eagles brushed off the four-game losing streak it accumulated just before the 2011 playoffs and went on to defy the odds in winning a Group 2 South Jersey title. It was adversity in its grandest manner, and the Eagles overcame it with in the greatest of fashion.

Fast forward to this season, and the Eagles once again find themselves backed into a corner, only this time, there is a whole chunk of a season left on the schedule. West Deptford entered the week 0-4, with far more questions than answers.

Understandably, frustration was starting to set in.

“You keep telling them to battle through adversity,” head coach Mike Rucci said after a 3-1 loss to Haddonfield. “Right now in our locker room, it’s down. When you lose four games the way we have, there aren’t a lot of positives going around.

"You have to try to stay upbeat because it is still early on, and there is still time to turn the season around. In all honestly, in four games, we were four hits away from being 4-0, or at least 3-1.”

The Eagles took the first step in reversing their season on Monday in a 9-7 win over Collingswood. West Deptford trailed 7-3 entering the sixth inning, when suddenly, those timely hits which spent the first two weeks MIA appeared. With two outs, Tim Krott blasted a two-run triple and Tom Jakubowski scorched a two-run double. West Deptford finished the inning with five runs and tacked on another in the seventh.

Prior to the game, Krott talked about how the experiences of an up-and-down 2011 regular season could help the team keep an optimistic look at this campaign. In addition to the four-game losing streak late in the season, that championship bunch also endured a 0-2 start.

“Knowing it’s happened before is something we can build off this year,” said Krott. “This year we are in a deeper hole than we were last year, but as hard as we have worked, there is no reason it can’t happen again.”

In fairness to this year's group, it is lacking some of the ingredients that made last year’s remarkable playoff run possible. Tony Urban—who was the undisputed ace and was first or second to Jakubowski in just about every offensive category—graduated, leaving a big hole on diamond and in the batter's box. This team is also counting on the services of four freshmen, while Ty Castellano was the only freshman to log serious innings a year ago.

Yet a core of talented and experienced players remain, and Rucci isn’t about to let an excuse such as youth cast any doubt on how good his team could, and should be. He started the season with the expectation of repeating in Group 2, and a four-game slump wasn’t about to change that.

After what happened a year ago, it would be foolish to doubt the coach or his players.

 “We just have to keep battling and see if we can handle adversity and try to fight through it,” said Rucci. “We will see who steps up to the task.”