2008 SEASON REVIEW
The Leafs learned quickly that in baseball, little separates winning from losing In a sport where you can be successful just 30 percent of the time and be considered successful, the line between a win and a loss is extremely fine. It didn’t take long for the Goshen College baseball team to figure that fact out firsthand. A young Maple Leafs squad – just seven upperclassmen on the roster of 23 – started the season with a 5-14 mark. However, nine of those fourteen losses were by three runs or less, including five by just a single run. Goshen was literally inches away from a handful of additional wins. Perhaps it was never truer as when the Leafs faced off against NCAA DII Eckerd College in Florida. Down 7-1 early in the game, Goshen battled back and rallied to get back into the game. Already having scored five runs in the eighth inning, Tom McDowell doubled home what Goshen thought to be the tying run. However, the tying run turned into the final out of the inning as the base runner was called out for missing third base and Goshen eventually fell 9-8.
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Goshen College Athletics
The Leafs did not take long to respond from the adversity, though, as the very next day they split a double header with sister school Eastern Mennonite University. The two schools, along with Bluffton University, gathered together in Florida to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the tragic bus accident that took six lives from the Bluffton Baseball family. Despite losing the first game of the three-game series in extra innings, Goshen responded with two straight to take the series and bragging rights. In the finale, the Maple Leafs hit grand slams in back-to-back innings as they powered past the Royals 12-5. After twelve games out of the state of Indiana – primarily against southern teams who had played up to 20 games at the time of the competition – the Leafs finally got their home opener on March 15th when they hosted Alma College. It turned out to be well worth the wait as senior Ian Swartz threw a completegame shutout as Goshen won the opener 5-0. The Maple Leafs would use a solid start by Aaron Coy to complete the sweep with a 9-2 win in the nightcap.