HCAC announces baseball preseason poll
The Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC) announced the results of the Baseball preseason poll, with Defiance finishing tied for ninth with Mount St. Joseph.
CARMEL, Ind. – The Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC) announced the results of the Baseball preseason poll, with Transylvania University picked to repeat in 2022 in a vote among league coaches. The Defiance squad finished tied for ninth with Mount St. Joseph.
The Pioneers earned 97 points, with seven first-place votes. Anderson University finished in second with 85 points, also receiving two first-place nods. Franklin College also picked up a first-place vote en route to 76 points and third place. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (71) and Hanover College (61) rounded out the top half of the poll, finishing in fourth and fifth respectively.
Three Yellow Jackets were named to the Players to Watch list. The trio of Nate Kaffenbarger, Cohen Nies, and Lucas Thomeier earned spots on the watchlist. Kaffenbarger and Nies were named Honorable Mention All-HCAC last season.
Kaffenbarger started all 39 games in 2021, posting a .311 batting average while leading the team in hits (50), at-bats (161), home runs (five), doubles (nine), total bases (78), extra-base hits (16), runs batted in (40) and assists (85). A versatile fielder who can play both infield and outfield, Kaffenbarger spent most of the 2021 campaign at shortstop for the Yellow Jackets. Entering the 2022 season Kaffenbarger is in the top ten in program history for career doubles (28), triples (five), and runs batted in (77).
Nies made 12 appearances with 10 starts during the 2021 season and led Defiance in innings pitched (58.2) and strikeouts (57). 18 of the 57 batters Nies struck out went down looking, the seventh-most in the conference last season. Nies enters the season in seventh-place in career strikeouts with 184. Nies also earned honorable mention honors in 2019.
Thomeier led the team with 26 walks and eight stolen bases and finished second in hits with 46. The starting center fielder and leadoff hitter in 2021, Thomeier hit .305 with 11 extra-base hits (eight doubles, two triples, and a home run) and drove in 13 runs. He was named to the Tom Bohlsen Academic All-HCAC team and the All-HCAC Sportsmanship Team in 2021.