Baseball picked seventh in 2020 HCAC preseason poll

CARMEL, Ind. – Heading into the upcoming season, the Defiance College baseball team is picked to finish seventh this year among the 10 Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference squads, according to the 2020 HCAC Baseball Preseason Poll. The poll was comprised in a vote of the conference’s head coaches and released by the HCAC office on Tuesday morning.

Baseball picked seventh in 2020 HCAC preseason poll
February 4, 2020

DEFIANCE, Ohio – Heading into the upcoming season, the Defiance College baseball team is picked to finish seventh this year among the 10 Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference squads, according to the 2020 HCAC Baseball Preseason Poll. The poll was comprised in a vote of the conference's head coaches and released by the HCAC office on Tuesday morning.

Defiance finished with 44 points in the poll, just one point behind Hanover College and only two points back of Earlham College. Franklin College, which captured the HCAC Tournament title last season, received 94 points and six first-place votes to earn the top spot, ahead of 2019 regular-season champion Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (86 points, two first-place votes), Anderson University (81, one) and Transylvania University (69, one). Behind the Yellow Jackets are Manchester University (40 points), Bluffton University (32) and Mount St. Joseph University (13).

DC also had five players named to the 2020 HCAC Baseball Athletes to Watch list in junior right-handed pitcher Cohen Nies (Logansport, Ind./Lewis Cass), junior outfielder Nate Kaffenbarger (De Graff, Ohio/Indian Lake), senior catcher Ben Bucklew (Archbold, Ohio/Archbold), junior right-handed pitcher Jack Powell (Commerce Township, Mich./Walled Lake Northern) and junior right-handed pitcher/utility player Michael Reese (Constantine, Mich./Constantine).

Bucklew was a First Team All-HCAC selection in 2019 while Nies garnered both honorable mention and all-tournament team honors a season ago. Reese was also chosen to the HCAC All-Tournament Team last May.

Under 13th-year head coach Derek Woodley – a 2019 HCAC Co-Coach of the Year – Defiance posted a 23-16-1 overall record last spring, including 10-8 during conference regular-season play, tying for third place. As one of six clubs to qualify for the HCAC Tournament, the fourth-seeded Yellow Jackets won two games and lost two close ones, both to top-seed Rose-Hulman, to finish third.

DC is scheduled to open its 2020 campaign at the Gene Cusic Collegiate Classic in Fort Myers, Florida, on Monday, March 9.