Tuesday Morning Mound Visit: Warriors hold all the cards as postseason begins

Apr. 30—Postseason baseball is officially upon us. And once again, No. 5 Lewis-Clark State is sitting firmly in the driver's seat.

The Warriors swept their four-game, regular-season series finale against Bushnell this past weekend. The sweep avenged the only series loss LCSC suffered this season and also clinched the regular season Cascade Conference championship for the Warriors.

The regular season championship makes LCSC the host team for the postseason CCC tournament, which will begin at 1 p.m. on Saturday at Harris Field.

The Warriors are the No. 1 seed, Oregon Tech is the No. 2, British Columbia is the No. 3 and Bushnell is the No. 4.

LCSC will play Bushnell in the first round at 4 p.m. Saturday.

And there's not a question as to who the favorites are.

The Warriors are on a 16-game winning streak. This streak consists of four series sweeps, one of which was against No. 4 LSU Shreveport.

Over that stretch, LCSC has seen season-best performances from several players at the plate, on the field and on the mound.

The Warriors are playing the kind of baseball that they expected of themselves and coaches expected when they were ranked the No. 3 team in the NAIA in the preseason poll.

LCSC is rolling. And with the postseason tournament taking place at Harris Field, where the Warriors have an undefeated record this season, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the field.

The only team that LCSC doesn't have a winning record against is Oregon Tech, which split a four-game series with the Warriors earlier in the year.

What's interesting about the position LCSC is in is that it truly felt like a gradual build. It wasn't like last season, when there were questions about the Warriors making the World Series going into the NAIA Opening Round. And it wasn't like in years past where LCSC was dominant from the jump.

The Warriors this season were once at risk of finishing with the worst team ERA in program history. Now, they have two genuine aces in Drake George and Shane Spencer who've won four of the last five Cascade Conference pitcher of the week awards. The fifth was won by LCSC reliever Cam Smith.

Due to injuries and position battles, the lineup was constantly being tinkered with and moved around, even as recently as this week. Eighteen players have either started games or received multiple at-bats for the Warriors.

Earlier in the year, that kind of constant roster shuffling made it hard for LCSC to string together wins consistently. But now, it looks like all those players getting time ended up helping the team in the long run.

The lineup is all but finalized and every single player, some of whom started the season with an outside chance of being a consistent starter, has had a highlight game or performance.

Two of the main beneficiaries of the early roster shuffling have been junior right fielder Brandon Cabrera and senior second baseman Magnum Hofstetter.

Cabrera is leading the team in batting average (.370) and is second on the team in home runs (13). Hofstetter in the last three weeks has hit his first two home runs of the season, the first of which was for a walk-off, extra-inning win against LSU Shreveport.

This isn't to say the Warriors aren't without some flaws going into the postseason.

The bullpen features many talented hurlers, but it's also a little top-heavy. In the last month of the season, LCSC has avoided going too deep into its rotation due to the success of its starters.

But this last weekend against Bushnell, there were a couple situations where things could've gone bad.

In Game 1 of the series, the Beacons put up five runs in one inning after trailing by six. They ended up tying the game and forcing extra innings in the eventual LCSC victory. In the second game, they got within one run again in the ninth inning.

In Game 4 of the series, the Warriors allowed four runs in the seventh, but LCSC's offense did its job in Games 3 and 4 and avoided another potential Bushnell rally. The Beacons ended up getting mercy-ruled in Game 3.

Last postseason, it was the depth and ability of the relievers, in addition to the elite offense, that allowed the Warriors to make the Avista NAIA World Series championship game.

This year, the offense is there, but it's the starting pitchers that seem to be the strength of the staff. George and Spencer are as steady as they come, and Day 3 and 4 starters Hiroyuki Yamada and Decker Stedman are more than capable when they're at their best.

As for the relievers — Smith, Landon Webb, Jantzen Lucas and Jake Green have proven to be steady arms when closing out games.

But there is an opening for other teams to take advantage the deeper LCSC goes into its bullpen. It's not a sure thing. Every single pitcher the Warriors have put on the mound this season has had some good mixed in with any bad.

As stated before, this season has been a gradual growth for LCSC. It lost games when its pitching and offense stumbled. It's also won games where the pitching isn't at its best.

It's all been situational. The team now knows how to win games when the offense or pitching staff isn't performing. That wasn't the case earlier in the year.

The resume is there for the Warriors to be confident in their chances against anyone and there is no team that will be put in front of LCSC that it doesn't think it can beat.

The last two seasons, the Warriors have been one game away from their 20th World Series championship. Last year they were one run away.

This current group of LCSC players has collectively achieved everything it can, except win a World Series title.

There's one last hurdle to clear. And the path to jump that hurdle begins Saturday.

Kowatsch can be contacted at 208-848-2268, tkowatsch@lmtribune.com or on Twitter @Teren_Kowatsch.