Hilbert College ballpayers are soon going to be able to use their new fields after a long wait.

The new baseball and softball fields on campus, as part of an agreement with developers building apartments next to the campus, are nearing completion and the teams will soon be able to use them to host games. The fields desperately needed a change with poor drainage making it near impossible to host games with even mild amounts of precipitation in the days leading up to games.

The baseball and softball teams are eager to get out on the fields to practice and play games, with their spring seasons now started. The construction on these fields started in the fall of 2019, but there have been road bumps on the construction along the way.

It has been hard to complete the building of these fields because Covid 19 struck the world, then the cold weather, rain, and snow came to Buffalo, making it very hard to keep the building of the fields running smoothly.

Hilbert College Athletic Director Megan Valentine said the students are excited to play at home again.

“It ended up being more expensive and challenging on the back end of things,” Valentine said.

The idea of two new fields sounds great to everyone, but it is important to keep in mind the work that goes into coordinating the whole process and ensuring that it runs correctly.

The athletics program started planning for the new fields before Valentine became the athletic director at Hilbert. The fields are part of a deal between RANE Property Management, the company putting up apartments on the adjacent Immaculata site, and the Franciscan Sisters of Saint Joseph, who sold the land to the developer.

“We are very thankful for the Franciscan sisters of Saint Joseph to make these fields possible,” Valentine said. “We also had to do a lot with the town hall involving the permitting process.”

As for when the fields will be ready, it is hard to tell at this current time. The cold weather, snow, and rain has not helped the process at all as we near the time that home games need to be played for the Hawks baseball and softball teams.

“They can’t be ready soon enough. Drainage around this time of year is tough,” Valentine said. “Hopefully they can be used for games this spring.”

Sydnea Schiedel, an infielder on the softball team, said she is excited to play on the new fields.

“We are all eager to get out on to the new field,” Schiedel said. “Being able to practice and play on the new fields gives us so much more opportunity to get better and make competitive runs in our seasons.”

Valentine said having fields that can consistently host games will help the athletics department build a sense of community around the teams.

“It creates a lot of opportunities for the community around us to bring people to campus,” she said.

The fields will also create an opportunity for Hilbert College to use these fields in the summer to host tournaments or even a few camps during the summer, Valentine said.

“It helps with the recruitment process, and it is important to bring people here to build that relationship with recruits” Valentine said. It may seem like a lot right now with all the different obstacles that Hilbert Athletics had to tackle with the weather and the construction, but the end is near and when these fields are finally finished there will be nothing but good things coming out of them for the teams that play on them and the community surrounding Hilbert College, she said.

Hilbert baseball opened conference play last week looking to follow up a big win against Oberlin College April 2. It would be a day where everything went La Roche University’s way.

The Hawks pitcher Aydan Rolph would only last 3 innings as the Redhawks got to him early scoring five runs. Jake Seymour, the starting pitcher for La Roche, threw six complete innings while giving up zero runs and striking out seven batters.

La Roche’s lead off hitter Austin Hoffman would have quite an offense game collecting two hits, one of those being his first homerun of the season. Hilbert would have seven hits in the first game but couldn’t plate a run dropping the first game of the double header 13-0.

In the second game Zachary Crane would start on the mound for the Hawks, but would leave the game in the second inning due to an injury. Before leaving crane would give up three runs, two of them being earned, making the score 3-0 heading into the bottom half of the third inning.

With the bases would be loaded for Misael Guzman., he hit a single scoring one and making the score 3-1. A couple pitches later Frank McCabe would score on a wild pitch making it 3-2. But two runs would cap Hilbert’s Offensive for the rest of the day. La Roche would continue to tack on 13 more runs throughout the rest of the game. Winning their second game of the season 16-2.

The Hilbert Hawks softball team has been practicing hard with restrictions in place as they begin their spring season.  

“I am excited to be able to watch their games again, because all of my roommates play and I can sort’ve live the sport through them,” said junior psychology major, Kaylea Schiedel.

Since the first team meeting in September of last year, it was apparent to players that coming back with COVID-19 still in place, the experience would be vastly different. Safety is the biggest priority, said sophomore Sydney Schiedel, who plays second base.

“It is definitely different. There are a lot of things that make it tough. Twenty five percent of the team gets tested each week. Before games, we have to have a negative COVID test within 72 hours of the game,” said Schiedel. “Plus, we had to split into two pods, so we can only have 10 people in each pod to maintain physical distance from each other,” Schiedel stated.

One thing that continues to remain a top priority this season is the importance of teamwork and treating everyone with a fair opportunity both on and off the field.

“The captains are naturally those who are making this season turn out to be a success for our team. There is naturally some tension between players fighting for a spot, but the captain’s do a good job of making sure we are all playing together and feel like a team,” said Schiedel.

Schiedel said that last season effected eligibility to play this season, as seniority for players is determined by the years that an athlete is actively playing. This caused much frustration amongst those returning players and new players, both first-time freshman and transfers.

“I’m a sophomore in the classroom, but I’m a freshman on the field because I got my year of eligibility back last year since our season was cancelled. So now there’s a lot of girls that are freshman and have never played an actual collegiate game here at Hilbert. This is where it makes it confusing and caused frustration amongst being able to get a spot this season,” said Schiedel.

The Hilbert Baseball team took on Hiram College at Gowanda High school this week, splitting the double header with the Terriers.

In game one there was a lot of offense from both teams. Getting the start game 1 would be Josh McTigue, who threw four innings, taking the no-decision. Bullpen pitcher Aydan Rolph picked up his second win in the short season, as the Hawks would battled back and forth in a intense offensive game.

The Terriers Would score the first run of the game giving them one run lead until the bottom of the third. After a couple of misplayed balls James Disanti would place a single into left field scoring 2, the next batter Misael Guzman would drive in another run off another Hiram error making the score 4-1 Hilbert.

But Hiram was not out of the game, answering with a four run fifth inning putting the Terriers up 5-4. In the bottom half of the inning Misael Guzman would step up to the plate with two runners on and send a 3-run home run over the centerfield fence, putting the hawks back on top 9-5 in the 5^th inning.  Aydan Rolph would blank the Terriers in the 6^th inning. Hilbert added three more runs on two extra base hits. A home run by John Wilson and a double by Brandon Job put the hawks up 12-5 headed into the 7^th. The Terriers would not go down quietly scoring two runs in their last chance falling just short to the Hawks 12-7

In the second Game everything would go Hiram’s way. In the first two innings Hiram would score four unearned runs. The Hawks would try to get back into the game with back-to-back singles by Shawn Romanowski and Brandon Job,sending the nine whole hitter Frank McCabe up to the plate with two outs. McCabe hit the first pitch in his at bat one hoping the fence scoring 3 runs on a stand-up double. That would be all the scoring in the game for the Hawks. Hiarm would rally in the fourth inning scoring eight runs on six hits. The Hawks would fail to Hiram the second game 18-3.

Hilbert (2-4) will hit the road for another away series traveling to Oberlin, OH to face Oberlin College (0-0) with first pitch set for 2 p.m. Friday afternoon.