Tag: Player of the Month

Andrew Yin ’15 and Donnie Cimino ’15: May Players of the Month

Donnie Cimino '15 - Westwood, NJ
Donnie Cimino ’15 – Westwood, NJ (Courtesy of Wesleyan Athletics)
Andrew Yin '15 - Potomac, MD
Andrew Yin ’15 – Potomac, MD (Courtesy of Wesleyan Athletics)

 

We interrupt your summer beach-going (or retreat to the fireplace the last two days if you live in the Northeast) to bring you the final Player of the Month for the spring. We couldn’t figure out how to give it to just one person, so we did the easy thing and gave it to the two table setters in the Wesleyan lineup.

Andrew Yin ’15 and Donnie Cimino ’15 have been mainstays in the Wesleyan lineup from the very beginning of their freshmen year. Cimino started every single game he could in a Cardinal uniform, 163 games in all. Yin was never far behind starting 150 over his career. Until Yin had to be held out of a game against Mitchell this season, the two had started 109 games consecutively together dating back to the first game of their sophomore year. That might not seem like much next to the 2,632 consecutive games Cal Ripken Jr. played, but for the NESCAC it is quite the feat.

Both of them got off to somewhat slow starts this season, not that it mattered much considering how good the Cards’ pitching was for the first half. As Wesleyan entered the playoff section of their season, Cimino and Yin recovered and played some of their finest baseball. During the month of May they tore the cover off the ball. Combined the two hit 41-89 (.460) and had an OBP of .515. They both finished the year with 10-game hitting streaks, though Yin’s season was cut short as he missed the final two games of the Cardinals’ NCAA Regional. Their Mays were uncannily similar. Both walked five times and stole six bases while getting caught stealing once. Yin had nine runs and four RBI while Cimino had nine RBI and four runs.

They were best during the NESCAC tournament when they reached base 20 out of the 39 times they came to the plate. In the climactic winner-take-all game against Amherst, the two both had three-hit days. Yin in particular was the star with three doubles, two runs, and one RBI. That RBI came on a double down the right field line that scored Ellis Schaefer ’17 for the tying run in the Top of the 9th. In the times when runs were the most at a premium, the duo found ways to get on base at an exceptional clip.

Also, don’t overlook the defensive accomplishments of these two. Cimino covered an insane amount of ground in center, something he also did well on the football field. He also committed only one error on the year. Yin was a sure-handed second baseman who turned more double plays (23) than any other middle infielder in the league. They were two cogs in a stellar defense that was just as important a part of Wesleyan’s success as their pitching or hitting.

Cimino’s career accomplishments are significant of course. The Hartford Courant did a good job of diving deep into his entire four-year, two-sport athletic career. In terms of baseball, he leaves with 240 hits over the course of his career, the all-time record at Wesleyan. As mentioned above, he never missed a game. He came to play every single day with a passion for the game. Throughout his career he has hit anywhere from the leadoff spot to the three hole consistently. Though he never hit for a lot of power, he used his speed to be a weapon.

Yin could not quite match the gaudy statistics Cimino put up, but he was far from a slouch. His sophomore year he was first team All-NESCAC, and he hit above .300 all four years. Also, the most impressive part of Yin’s career at Wesleyan came off of the diamond. He was an absolute stud in academics garnering back-to-back CoSIDA baseball All-American First Team honors. What did he do to earn that award, you ask? Nothing much, except for TRIPLE majoring in chemistry, molecular biology & biochemistry, and neuroscience & behavior. Just completing a degree with those three majors (some of the hardest the school offers) would be noteworthy, but Yin did it with a 4.01 GPA!!! We don’t even quite understand how he got that final .01 added at the end. We do know that it is one of the most impressive accomplishments we have heard of at a NESCAC school.

Meting out individual credit for Wesleyan’s success has always been hard because different guys always seem to come up for them. And their pitching and defense has been the biggest reason why the Cardinals captured consecutive NESCAC titles. So in the end I couldn’t settle on just one player but settled on these two. They were the most dynamic top of the lineup in the league, and they were absolute constants throughout their time at Wesleyan. Down the stretch the two were instrumental in bringing another NESCAC title to Middletown, and for that they are our May Players of the Month.

Henry Van Zant: April NESCAC Player of the Month

Henry Van Zant '15 delivering a pitch against Bates. (Courtesy of Bowdoin Athletics/ Tom Van Zant)
Henry Van Zant ’15 delivering a pitch against Bates. (Courtesy of Bowdoin Athletics/ Tom Van Zant)

Editors Note: Statistics are through all April games.

More so than in any other sport that we cover, one player – in this case, an ace – on a NESCAC team can have a massive effect on a team’s record. Because the NESCAC regular season is structured with only weekend games one starting pitcher can start (at least) 33 percent of their NESCAC games. Having that one starter who you can rely on for a victory every time out is an enormous advantage. With apologies to all the other elite aces in the NESCAC (all three Wesleyan starting pitchers, Sean Meekins ’15, Tim Superko ’17, etc.), no player represented that more than Henry Van Zant ’15 for Bowdoin. After his junior year was mostly lost because of a shoulder injury, Van Zant was able to come back better than ever as a senior. He pitched his best throughout the month of April when he could be relied upon every game he pitched to give Bowdoin a chance to win.

Van Zant made five starts in April, four of which were NESCAC games and a fifth one against West-division foe Wesleyan. He also made a start on March 27 against Tufts where he went all seven innings and allowed zero earned runs. Over the course of April, he went the distance three times and threw 40 innings in total. During April, Van Zant tossed up a 2.03 ERA and 7.43 K/9. He also had a WHIP of 1.08. He went 5-0 in his starts. In that non-conference game against Wesleyan Van Zant held the Cardinals scoreless the entire game to give Bowdoin the 1-0 win. That game represented Wesleyan’s only loss to a NESCAC opponent until its loss to Amherst yesterday.

An appropriate comparison for Van Zant is 2001 Curt Schilling as powerful righties with above-average fastballs that rely mainly on a two-pitch combination. The biggest difference (alright, there are bigger differences. .. whatever) between them is their secondary pitches. Schilling was known for his split-fingered fastball while Van Zant relies on a vicious slider beside his fastball. Those two pitches are really it. He says that he also can throw a changeup, but “If those pitches [fastball and slider] are working, I can usually get by with just that.” Both pitches are ones that he can throw and consistently miss bats with. His fastball is so effective because of his ability to control it while also having a lot of movement on it. Van Zant throws a two-seam fastball that tails towards righties. He feels comfortable throwing it when he just needs a strike or when he wants a strikeout.

Catcher Chris Nadeau ’16 says that the approach for Van Zant does not change very much from game to game. Everything begins by establishing the fastball early on in the game. Then the slider starts to get used more and more as the game goes along. Van Zant rarely disagrees with the pitches that Nadeau calls. Van Zant says he “couldn’t ask for a better catcher than [Nadeau].” This is Nadeau’s first year as a full time starter, but he caught Van Zant down the stretch of last season so the two had a good feel for each other coming into this year.

The most impressive accomplishment of Van Zant’s April was a five-day stretch from April 24-28. On Friday he took the mound and went all nine innings to secure the win. He had to labor through more than 130 pitches and get out of a few early jams to overcome a rocky start, by his standards. Then, on three days’ rest, he took the mound against Bates in a must-win game for Bowdoin to have a chance of making the playoffs. He looked unsteady to begin the game allowing four runs through three innings. Then, with more than 200 pitches already in the last five days, Van Zant reared back and managed to throw five scoreless innings and left the game after the eighth with the score 12-4. He again threw more than 130 pitches in the game.

When asked about that heroic stretch Van Zant said, “It came down to wanting a chance at playoffs more than caring how my elbow currently felt. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to get through half that many innings without the rest of the boys fighting for it with me.” First baseman Chad Martin ’16 said Van Zant’s stuff did not show the effects of all those pitches at the end of the Bates game. “In the eighth, his fastball was still moving and the slider still had a lot of bite to it.” One of the strongest players on the baseball team, Van Zant makes sure to take good care of his body year round.

In the end Van Zant would come up just short of getting the Polar Bears to the playoffs, but it wasn’t for lack of effort. That start against Bates ended up being the final one of Van Zant’s career, but there is nothing he could have done to have things turn out differently. He won all five of his NESCAC starts, which coincidentally were Bowdoin’s only five wins in conference. His statistics are of course impressive, but they only begin to tell the full story. During the month of April, Van Zant came as close as possible to making a team game into an individual showcase. For that, he is Nothing but NESCAC’s Player of the Month for April.