CREDIT: FANSHAWE FALCONS
A slow start has the men's baseball team looking inward after a 1-7 start to the season. (Pictured: Falcons first and third baseman, Jamie Chopping-Lawlor.)

The Fanshawe Falcons’ men’s baseball team started the season off with a 1-7 record, losing their first seven games of the season in a row.

This is quite a change from last year, which saw the team win five of their first six games to get the season going.

“We’re coming off a 10-9 loss in a bronze level game at the championships. We were one inning away from going to the gold medal game last year. In the last eight years we’ve played, we’ve had a team medal in seven of those years,” said men’s baseball Head Coach Brian Harvey.


“We’re a pretty successful program, we just need to find a bit more focus and build up a bit more hard work going forward as a group.”

In their eight games to begin the season, their hardest defeats have consisted of a 21-11 loss to the George Brown Huskies as well as an 18-1 loss to the Durham Lords.

With high scoring losses like this, teams and coaching staff find themselves looking inward, with Harvey saying that losses are often better teachers than wins.

“I think what it does is it makes you become a little bit more aware of what specifically now we need to work on going forward,” Harvey said.

“It makes us as a coaching staff a little more focused and aware of some of the things we need to work on, some of the specific areas that need improvement sooner rather than later to build up our success early.”

That being said, Harvey and his team have already begun the work of addressing some of their main contributors, with the amount of runs they’re giving up being the centre of attention.

“I would say our pitching right now is an area where we’re trying to be a little more focused than other areas,” Harvey said.

“I think defensively and offensively we are able to hold teams and be able to score runs. When you’re able to score eight runs in a game, you should be winning.” Along with pitching, Harvey said the team has another issue, but one that also shows the inner determination of the team and their capacity to easily turn these losses into wins.

“We never scored first, we were always playing from behind,” he said. “But every time we were behind, we always scored runs in the sixth and the seventh innings, so our guys have it in them. We just have to find a way to start a little bit on the better side.”

While seeing their late-game runs is a bright sign, another positive side of the team are their morale boosters in the dugout.

Keeping spirits high to allow some potential late-game heroics.

“I think our returning players are a key component of that spot, making sure that everyone starts dealing as a team and starts working together as a large team, especially after a couple losses,” Harvey said.

“I’d say our captains have done a very good job of making sure our guys are committing, getting to practice, making sure they’re coming to team events. More importantly, making sure the guys are on the same page on the diamond.”

With plenty of the season still ahead, the Falcons are looking to turn things around, now equipped with the lessons learned to push them back into the win column.