Tag: Drew Fischer

Students of the Game: Checking in with Former NESCAC Athletes in the Pros

With summer in full effect I’m sure no one has thought about NESCAC sports in quite a while. Well, here at NbN we’re always thinking about NESCAC sports so the summer is no time to slack off. With that being said, there are no NESCAC sports being played at the moment so this article will focus on those athletes lucky enough to be able to continue their careers beyond the collegiate level. We decided it would be worth checking in to see how each of the athletes is doing at the professional level to take a look at how the NESCAC fares amongst the very best. Please don’t be offended if I left someone out (we all know how NESCAC students love getting offended), but these were the only people I could find enough info on to write about.

Marcus Delpeche ’17 (Bates basketball)

It was no secret that the Delpeche brothers would see success at a higher level than the NESCAC. You could tell as soon as they set foot in the gym. Most Division III basketball teams don’t feature a 6’8”, 230-pound, athletic, muscular power forward on their roster, let alone two. How Coach Furbush convinced those guys to come to Lewiston is beyond me, but hindsight is 20/20 and it’s easy to see now how their development at Bates was crucial to taking their basketball careers to the next level. Marcus began his professional career with the Grevenbroich Elephants in the fourth tier of German basketball, posting 11.5 points per game while hauling in 5.3 rebounds in his rookie season. He then proceeded to sign with the Bristol Flyers of the British Basketball League, where he appeared in 33 games (including 15 starts) while putting up 7.8 points per game on 52% shooting and grabbing 4.6 rebounds per game in the process. Marcus re-signed with the Flyers earlier this month and he’ll be under contract until the conclusion of the 2019-2020 season.

Malcolm Delpeche ’17 (Bates basketball)

Like his brother, Malcolm started his career with the Grevenbroich Elephants, where he put up 13.5 points and 7.5 rebounds per game for a team that finished the season 21-3. This performance earned Malcolm a spot on the WWU Baskets Muenster of the German Pro B League – the third tier of German basketball. Here he continued to see success, starting 28 of the 31 games he appeared in while recording 12 points (on 55% shooting), 7.2 rebounds, and 1 block per game. His team finished as the league runner-up. He, too, has extended his contract another season so we can expect to hear more about his success from across the pond.

Drew Fischer ’?? (Amherst baseball)

Fischer has had quite the career to this point. He didn’t play much (for someone who ended up getting drafted) during his freshman or sophomore year at Amherst while battling injury, then put together an outstanding junior season on an innings limit. What caught the eyes of scouts was that he had a projectable frame (6’3”, 210lbs) and he lit up the radar gun with his fastball reaching as high as 95mph while in college. When he was selected after his junior year in the 35th round of the 2017 MLB Draft by the Pittsburgh Pirates they knew he’d be a bit of a project with slight control issues, but they were willing to take a chance. So far that chance has paid off as Fischer has slowly been climbing the ranks in the Pirates’ farm system. Here are his stats from each of his first three seasons in the minor leagues:

2017 short-season rookie ball with the Bristol Pirates:

3-1, 5.00 ERA, 27 IP, 28 H, 20 BB, 31 K, 1.78 WHIP

2018 class A with the West Virginia Power:

2-2, 3.83 ERA, 44.2 IP, 41 H, 20 BB, 50 K, 1.37 WHIP

2019 high A with the Bradenton Marauders:

0-1, 2.89 ERA, 9.1 IP, 8 H, 3 BB, 6 K, 1.18 WHIP

The 23 year-old has been improving every year with a lower walk rate, a higher strikeout rate, and a lower ERA to prove it. He is currently on the 7-day injured list in high A so his sample size is small for this season, but there’s clearly a trend here. If Fischer can stay healthy then it’s clear that his stuff will get him a long way.

Kellen Hatheway ’19 (Williams baseball)

Hatheway is one of the two youngest former NESCAC players currently playing professional sports. The 2019 Williams grad made his first NESCAC Tournament this past season after a very successful career as an Eph. He had a standout power year during his senior campaign hitting a career-high 5 home runs, two of which came in the NESCAC Tournament against Bates. He has continued that power streak into the summer, where he is playing for the Alpine Cowboys of the Pecos League of Independent Professional Baseball. Through just 16 games Hatheway already has 4 homers and 12 RBI, while hitting .242 and playing shortstop. Hopefully he’ll be able to stay hot and continue to impress scouts with his tremendous tools as a ballplayer.

Stephen Hauschka ’07 (Middlebury football)

This one is much different from all the others on this list. Stephen Hauschka has put together an incredibly successful career in the NFL with 5 different teams, most notably the Seattle Seahawks with whom he won a Super Bowl. His story, however, is worth talking about because he came to Middlebury with the intention of joining the soccer team. After he was cut his freshman year, his friends urged him to try out as a kicker for the football team the following fall. He made the team and completed his final 3 years in Vermont as the team’s starting kicker. With one year of eligibility left after graduation, he became a graduate transfer at North Carolina State where he was the starting kicker. His success there drew attention from NFL teams and the rest is history. Hauschka has a career field goal percentage of 86.4% (242-280) in the NFL and his career long is 58 yards. He is currently a member of the Buffalo Bills who he has been with since 2017.

Lucas Hausman ’16 (Bowdoin basketball)

The 2015 NESCAC Player of the Year has already had a successful career overseas. Hausman began his career in 2016-2017 with Basket Villa de Mieres in the fourth tier of the Spanish Basketball League. In 2017-2018 he found his way to CB Marbella, also in the fourth tier of the Spanish League, however Hausman’s first team all-tournament performance in the postseason help them earn a spot in the third tier heading into the following season. He finished the season averaging 13.5 points, 3 rebounds, and 2 assists per game while shooting 55% from the field and 38.3% from behind the arc. Hausman’s early success helped him earn a 3-year contract (through 2020-2021) with Maccabi Haifa of Liga Leumit in the second tier of Israeli professional basketball. In 2018-2019 he served as a role player for Maccabi Haifa, however his 57.4% shooting was best on the team. They also went on to win the national championship, earning them a spot in the Israeli Basketball Premier League in 2019-2020. Hausman will look to continue his strong career while slowly making his way up the ranks.

Johnny McCarthy ’18 (Amherst basketball)

After graduating from Amherst in 2018, McCarthy decided to pursue a Master’s Degree in Business at IT Carlow in Ireland. It just so happened that IT Carlow has a basketball team that competes in Ireland’s Division 1 National Basketball League because, you know, in Europe you can get paid to play basketball while you’re still in school, but I digress. McCarthy took full advantage of his opportunity, putting up 21.3 points, 8.6 rebounds, 4.9 assists, and 3 steals per game, while shooting 51.2% and 40.1% from 3-point land – earning him first team all-league honors. This may be McCarthy’s only year of professional basketball now that he has earned his master’s, although he was recently able to gain some publicity while playing in The Basketball Tournament on ESPN alongside the Delpeche twins for team We Are D3, so we’ll have to wait and see where that takes him.

Nick Miceli ’17 (Wesleyan baseball)

To be honest, Nick Miceli probably has had the wildest professional career of anyone on this list. This guy spends his winters playing with the Golden Grove Dodgers of the South Australian Baseball League and his summers playing in the German Bundesliga. I know what you’re thinking and yes, winter here is summer in Australia, so Miceli pretty much gets to live in the summer all year round. Not a bad deal right? To make things even better, he has been absolutely tearing up both of these leagues. In his first season with the Golden Grove Dodgers he hit .348 at the plate while finishing with a 2.53 ERA and 73 strikeouts in 57 innings pitched on the mound. This performance earned him a 3rd place finish in MVP voting that year as well as a spot as the club’s pitching coach the following season. During his first season in the Bundesliga with the Bremen Dockers, Miceli hit .353 with a 2.66 ERA and 156 strikeouts in 100 innings pitched. He also finished with a .966 fielding percentage while playing all 9 positions at some point throughout the season. He followed this up with another stellar season for Golden Grove in Australia, hitting .360 while maintaining a sub-3.00 ERA and actually leading the league in runners caught stealing from behind the dish. He is currently playing his 2019 summer season with the Bonn Capitals of the Bundesliga where he looks to continue his sweltering pace.

Colby Morris ’19 (Middlebury baseball)

The other newbie to pro sports, Morris initially signed with the Trois-Rivières Aigles of the Canadian American Association of Professional Baseball. After battling through a minor injury towards the end of his senior year at Middlebury, the 2018 NESCAC Pitcher of the Year bounced back and made 3 appearances totaling 11.2 innings with a modest 5.40 ERA in the Can-Am League. After a few short weeks Morris signed with the Gary SouthShore RailCats of the prestigious American Association of Professional Baseball, a league largely comprised of guys that bounce between indy ball and the double-A and triple-A levels of minor league baseball. He has already appeared in 4 games out of the bullpen for the RailCats and he will look to further impress scouts to improve on his impressive pitching career.

Harry Rafferty ’17 (Wesleyan basketball)

This is a guy who has a little bit of mystery around him. Rafferty graduated from Wesleyan in 2017 after a very successful NESCAC career and I’m honestly not sure what he was doing for his first year after graduation. I say that because he played the 2018-2019 season for the Sioux Falls Skyforce, an NBA G-League team in the Miami Heat organization. I was not able to find any information about him playing overseas, but he clearly did an excellent job staying in basketball shape because the G-League is no joke. He appeared in 4 games, averaging 19.1 minutes, 3 points, 2 assists, and just over 1 rebound per game for the Skyforce. It’s unclear what the next step is in his basketball career, but he is clearly someone who is willing to do whatever it takes to get to the next level.

Jake Turtel ’18 (Middlebury baseball)

Here’s another guy with a pretty interesting story. Turtel graduated from Middlebury in 2018 after a solid 4-year career with the Panthers, although he wasn’t quite the standout player that many of the other guys are on this list. This is by no means an effort to diminish Turtel’s time in the NESCAC, but rather to draw attention to the fact that he may have been a late bloomer. A career .253 hitter at Midd, Turtel has exploded in his first season as a member of the Stockholm Monarchs of the Elitserien League, Sweden’s highest level of professional baseball. He is currently hitting .372 with an on-base percentage of .560 while primarily playing second base. Turtel has also logged 13.1 innings on the mound in the process. There is clearly a precedent for former NESCAC baseball players succeeding overseas and this guy is no exception. In addition, Turtel serves as a youth coach for the lower levels of the Monarchs organization, so it’ll be intriguing to see where his career takes him.

Duncan Robinson ’18 (Williams basketball)

This one may be a bit of a stretch, but I felt the need to include it. Robinson only played one season at Williams before transferring to the University of Michigan for his final three years of college*. However, his impact at Williams is still felt today. He holds numerous single-season scoring and shooting records in Williamstown, and his success in Ann Arbor landed him a two-way contract with the Miami Heat after he went undrafted in 2018. As a member of the Sioux Falls Skyforce, Robinson average 21.4 points per game on 51.4% shooting and 48.3% from 3-point range, while grabbing 4.3 rebounds and dishing out 3 assists per game. He finished the year as an All-NBA G-League Third Team member and appeared in 15 games (1 start) with the Miami Heat in the NBA. In the last game of the season with the Heat, Robinson netted 15 points against the Brooklyn Nets – the first double-digit effort of his NBA career. Although he took a very different path, Robinson is still a NESCAC man at heart and it appears as though his pro career is just getting started.

*It appears as though Robinson has paved the way for future NESCAC basketball players to transfer to high level Division I schools, because Austin Hutcherson ’21 from Wesleyan recently took an official visit to the University of Notre Dame.

Random side note: One of the first times I was exposed to just how much talent is present in NESCAC sports was my freshman year of high school when our basketball team traveled to Phillips Exeter Academy for a holiday tournament. I didn’t know much about Exeter because we typically didn’t play them in the regular season, but man were they good. At the time, Harry Rafferty and Duncan Robinson were seniors on the team and after they torched us for 32 minutes I learned that they were headed to Wesleyan and Williams, respectively. I remember thinking to myself that these guys were absolute steals for NESCAC programs and that they probably should be heading to Division I schools. Turns out I was right about Robinson (and maybe Rafferty as well) but needless to say I gained an enormous amount of respect for NESCAC athletics after that experience.

Baseball Starting Nine: What You Have Missed Thus Far

Baseball returns to New England this coming weekend. Get ready. (Courtesy of Tufts University)
Baseball returns to New England this coming weekend. Get ready. (Courtesy of Tufts University)

Been too busy watching basketball and avoiding the snow to remember that NESCAC baseball is in full swing at this point? You certainly were not alone. It has been easy to lose sight of everything going on down south, but we kept close tabs for you. With the NESCAC conference season starting Friday, get ready for our season predictions and other analysis coming later this week. In the meantime, here are nine things you need to know about.

1. Wesleyan has experience for days: A quick perusal of the Wesleyan statistics tells us very clearly that freshmen are not going to see much playing time. Through twelve games, the only stats accrued by freshmen are four at-bats. Besides that a returning player has played every pitch and at-bat. That ability to have exclusively upperclassmen separates the Cardinals from every other team that has to rely on some freshmen to fill crucial roles. The returning champions have every reason to be confident.

2. Cardinals have impressed: Sticking with the defending champions for our second point. As we mentioned in our season preview, Wesleyan played a challenging spring trip schedule, and overall they showed they belong with the best. Their 8-4 victory over #7 Cal Lutheran was a high water mark that brought them to 5-0 for the season. Ace Nick Cooney ’15 started and won that game for Wesleyan. Wesleyan stumbled a bit near the end of the trip and is now 8-4, but they still are the most impressive team to this point. Guy Davidson ’16 has a slashline of .395/.477/.684 to lead the offense. Wesleyan probably hasn’t hit their stride yet, and they are already pretty scary looking.

3. Dylan Sinnickson ’15 is bashing baseballs: The return of Sinnickson to the diamond is a big reason why there is a sliver of hope around the Middlebury team, and he wasted no time making an impact. In the Panthers opening doubleheader Saturday, Sinnickson went 5-9 and hit THREE home runs. Then he hit another in the Panthers first game on Sunday to tie for the league lead after only three games. The team’s pitching against him probably had no idea who he was and he likely saw some fat fastballs that he was able to eat up, but still, not many players in the NESCAC can do hit four homers in three games. To take a year off from baseball and come back hitting like that is incredible and shows the type of athlete he is.

4. Bowdoin and Trinity struggled: The two East Division teams both have their sights set on returning to the playoffs, but they need to improve on their play quickly. Bowdoin went 5-8 on their Florida trip while the Bantams went 7-5. The Bowdoin staff saw nobody pitch well and the team had a 5.58 ERA. The front of the rotation guys like Erik Jacobsen ’15 and Harry Ridge ’16 pitched decently while Henry Van Zant ’15 started only one game. Meanwhile Trinity’s problem of hitting for no power carried over to this season. As a team the Bantams slugged .357 in their 12 games and had nobody hit a single home run. The good news is that their top two pitchers Sean Meekins ’15 and Jed Robinson ’16 looked fantastic.

https://twitter.com/TrinityBaseball/status/579722627373240320

5. Tommy O’Hara ’18 big for Tufts: The weakness of Tufts is their lineup, but O’Hara looks like he is going to solve a good deal of that problem single-handedly. The freshman third baseman was Tufts’ best hitter on their trip to Virginia and North Carolina. He had a ridiculous .564 OBP in 42 at-bats. With a 1:1 K:BB ratio, he should be able to carry over that type of hitting to the conference season. Don’t expect him to finish with an OBP above .500, but the Illinois native will be a huge bat in the middle of the Tufts lineup that appeared a bat or two away from being elite before the season started.

6. Amherst pitching is unsettled: The big reason why the Jeffs went only 6-6 on their trip was a pitching staff that saw a lot of players auditioning for a starting role. Six different pitchers started games for the Jeffs, and John Cook ’15 started only one game in part to let others get a chance to show their stuff. Drew Fischer ’18 flashed his massive potential with 15 strikeouts in only 8.2 innings. The problem is that he also walked nine batters. He will have to do a better job of trusting his fielders and not simply trying to strike everybody out. Jackson Volle ’17 had two solid starts and might have won the third rotation start because he appears to be more consistent than the flashy Fischer.

7. Rob DiFranco ’16 emerging for Bates: The transition from reliever to starter is going well for DiFranco so far with two starts and two wins. Granted, the first start he only went two innings. He has allowed only one run in eight innings so far, and he has yet to walk an opposing batter. DiFranco only went five innings in his longest start so far so we have not seen whether he can go deep into games yet, but the early returns are promising. Combined with Will Levangie ’15 thus far, and the Bobcats rotation has been solid.

8. Hamilton sophomores stepping up: Joe Jensen ’15 has been fantastic like you would expect him to be, and the Continentals are hitting better behind as well. Chris Collins ’17, Kenny Collins ’17, Ryan Wolfsberg ’17, and Andrew Haser ’17 are all hitting .333 or better. Haser in particular has been impressive after having an OBP below .300 in 2014. Having this core group of sophomores be consistent threats in the lineup makes Hamilton a much more dangerous team to pitch against. The Continentals will get the chance to see whether it stands up against Wesleyan this weekend.

9. Remember the sample size caveat: Do not get carried away with all the results so far. Statistics tells us that through random probability some players will get hot  A lot of things are going to change as we go forward. When assessing the worth of early season statistics, keep in mind Bayes’ theorem. While the idea is sort of complicated, the idea is lend more weight to events that confirm what we thought already and give pause to events that contradict what we thought. So for example, we can trust that Jensen hitting above .500 is not a fluke because we knew already that he was really freaking good at baseball.

Talent Aplenty for the Jeffs: Amherst Baseball Season Preview

Mike Odenwaelder is back to mash baseballs which is good news for Amherst. (Courtesy of Amherst Athletics)
Mike Odenwaelder ’16 is back to mash baseballs which is good news for Amherst. (Courtesy of Amherst Athletics)

2014 Record: 30-11 (9-3, Second in NESCAC West), 0-2 in NESCAC Tournament, 2-2 in NCAA New England Regional.

Returning Starters: 8 (7 Position Players, 1 Starting Pitcher)

Projected Starting Lineup: (Stats are from 2014)

CF Brendon Hardin ’15 (.179/.304/.179, 0 HR, 6 RBI)
2B Andrew Vandini ’16 (.309/.401/.315, 0 HR, 25 RBI)
1B Mike Odenwaelder ’16 (.400/.452/.607, 6 HR, 31 RBI)
LF Yanni Thanopoulos ’17 (.312/.375/.409, 0 HR, 24 RBI)
C Connor Gunn ’16 (.307/.382/.444, 4 HR, 23 RBI)
RF Tyler Jacobs ’15 (.289/.331/.389, 2 HR, 27 RBI)
3B Sam Ellinwood ’18
SS Harry Roberson ’18
DH Max Steinhorn ’18

LHP John Cook ’15 (5-3, 1.93 ERA, 9.32 K/9, 64.2 IP)
RHP Keenan Szulik ’18 (6-0, 4.56 ERA, 6.93 K/9, 49.1 IP)
RHP Drew Fischer ’18

Offensive Overview:

If you didn’t look carefully at those stats from 2014, look again at Odenwaelder’s. Those were good enough for him to win NESCAC Player of the Year as a sophomore, and he followed that up by winning the Futures Collegiate summer league MVP award as well. The expectation is that Odenwaelder will be drafted at some point in the draft this spring, and it is possible that he gets picked somewhere in the top 15 rounds. There are plenty of other boppers around Odenwaelder, too. Both Gunn and Jacobs hit multiple home runs a season ago. Vandini will get on base a lot while Hardin will have to show he belongs at the top of the lineup. The bottom of the lineup looks completely different with three freshmen getting the first chance at those spots. The shortstop Roberson in particular is one name to keep an eye on as he was the ISL (Independent School League) MVP last season. There are a lot of new faces from a season ago, all of which have high expectations.

Defensive Overview:

The major change on defense is on the left side of the infield where the duo of Jacobs and Taiki Kasuga ’14 combined for 26 of Amherst’s 50 errors a season ago. That is why Jacobs is now playing right field, and the freshmen Roberson and Ellinwood are getting a crack at starting. They should be more steadily reliable defenders which will go a long way. Gunn threw out only 19 percent of runners who stole against him. That number will need to be much higher or else Amherst might look elsewhere and move Gunn to DH. Hardin is also a new center fielder so there are some big question marks surrounding the Amherst defense. The key will be Roberson and Ellinwood making the simple play. Having Vandini as his partner in the middle infield will help Roberson a little, too.

Pitching Overview:

The Jeffs lose a ton from their rotation a year ago. Two of their three top starters, Dylan Driscoll ’14 and Quinn Saunders-Kolberg ’14, along with two others who pitched more than 25 innings, graduated. Odenwaelder likely won’t pitch because of shoulder concerns, and he was dominant for the Jeffs when he came in for relief in 2014. Cook will be an ace at the top for them, but after that things get a little dicey. Szulik ended up pitching 49.1 innings, but he was a reliever for most of the season. He will need to become an important piece very quickly. Jackson Volle ’17 is  another returning pitcher who might make a major impact, but it will be the freshman Fischer who gets first crack at a weekend slot. That third spot could ultimately go to somebody else, though. If Cook replicates his dominant junior season, that will give the rest of the rotation a little bit more leeway to get their feet under them.

Storylines to Watch

1. How good are the freshman?

Trotting out three freshmen in your starting lineup is unusual, and it is even more so when you consider the three are playing SS, 3B and DH. Those are usually some of your best hitting positions for college players. The youth in the Amherst lineup stands in contrast to their West division rival Wesleyan who has upperclassmen manning every position. Don’t let the DH label fool you with Steinhorn. He is actually a speed demon who will see some time in the middle infield but is simply blocked by Vandini and Roberson. Throw in the fact that Fischer should get major run in the rotation, and the Jeffs are going to be one of the teams most heavily reliant on freshmen.

2. What is Odenwaelder’s ceiling?

He had a spectacular freshmen year and then managed to easily top that last season. Then last summer he was the best player in a league that includes a decent amount of Division-I players. Throw in the fact that he is 6’5″ and weighs 225 and you start to get an idea for why MLB scouts are going to be showing up for a good amount of the Jeffs games. It is a real shame is that we are unlikely to see Odenwaelder throw 90+ like he did a season ago. However, his ability to absolutely MASH should keep us happy. The only real potential speed bump is that some of the hitters around him struggle. Then you could see teams pitch around Odenwaelder. That is very unlikely to happen given all the talent on the Amherst roster. We expect his on-base percentage to top .500 and his slugging percentage to rise also. Think 2002 Barry Bonds, but without all the steroid baggage.

3. Does the bullpen hold up?

Even though the rotation looks shaky right now, I expect a reliable top three to emerge by the time that conference play begins. The problem might be that there is no depth behind that top three because of all the losses from a season ago. The Jeffs have almost nobody who threw innings last season ready to step into a big time role. Last year Eric Kotin ’14 appeared in an astounding 22 games over the course of the season. He got touched for runs a couple of times, but overall he was a big stabilizing force for Amherst. They need somebody like him to step up and help Amherst to close out close games.

Biggest Series: April 24-25 against Wesleyan

This is really the only series that matters in the West. That might sound harsh, but this is very much a two-tier division. Wesleyan and Amherst will make the NESCAC playoffs unless one of the three bottom teams comes out of nowhere. The winner of this series should take the West division. Yet, this series is really more of a measuring stick than anything else. The championship format for the NESCAC this year is different, and instead of the top team hosting, all games are being played in Nashua, New Hampshire. That won’t change the Jeffs’ desire for revenge for last season when Wesleyan took two out of three.