University of Richmond Athletics
Postseason Recap with Coach Woodson
05/25/2016 | Baseball
UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, Va. -- As Head Coach Tracy Woodson completes his third season at the helm of the University of Richmond baseball program, he has much to celebrate. Since joining the Spiders in 2014, Woodson has laid his foundation for a storied program and is ready to take the program back to an elite level..
The Spiders closed out their 2016 campaign with a 28-24 overall mark. This season, four Spiders earned All-Atlantic 10 honors, as Michael Morman and Kurtis Brown landed on the First Team, and Matt Olson and Caleb Ward were named to the All-Rookie Team. During Woodson's tenure, the Spiders have garnered 11 All-Conference accolades.
Richmond started the season hot winning nine of its first ten games, and for back-to-back weeks had the best batting average in the nation - through much of the season, the Spiders remained ranked in the top-20 in the category. That wasn't all though, Richmond was among the best in the nation and the Atlantic 10 in several offensive categories.
Postseason Quick Hits with Coach Woodson
In your opinion, what do you think have been the biggest highlights of the season?
Finishing with a 28-24 record was an accomplishment in itself. Believe me, there isn't anyone who wants to win more than me, but I am also realistic. Going into the season, we knew that it was going to be tough after losing 300-plus innings pitched from the previous year. The class composition when we got here three years ago was out of balance as most of our experienced talented arms were in one class (which graduated).
Due to our admission and academic requirements here at Richmond, we aren't able to go out in June and raid the California and Florida junior colleges looking for a quick fix like many other baseball programs. So we knew we were going to be dependent on a group of incoming freshmen and an inexperienced sophomore class. Obviously, our offense was going to have to carry the load and I think they did for much of the season. Even with the departure of our top junior hitters Matt Dacey and Tanner Stanley to the draft this past summer, we were still one of the top hitting teams in the country. I thought we did a lot of great things on that side of the ball. We have three guys (Morman, Tyler Beckwith, and Doug Kraeger), who will have a chance to be drafted in a few weeks. We are excited for them and hope they will get an opportunity.
From a coach's perspective, what are your thoughts about this season?
This was a unique year. We started off hot (which I believe had a lot to do with our trip to Cuba), then went through a brief slide in the non-conference schedule. We started off conference play pretty strong - playing against the best teams in the league, and unfortunately just ran out of gas at the end of the season.
I don't believe in excuses, but the fact was that we lost our Friday and Saturday night starters due to season-ending injuries before we even had begun and then on top of that lost our top freshman closer to injury shortly after - the pitching depth was absolutely an issue all year. Don't get me wrong, I felt that we had a few guys step up and give us more than we ever expected, and I am proud of them. They gave all they had for the team but in the end, the fatigue and inexperience caught up with us.
I'm disappointed, but this only drives the staff and myself to work that much harder to develop our players, as well as to continue to build the depth we need to be successful. Hopefully, it drives our players as well. Many don't know that we are restricted to a roster of 30, unlike most baseball programs. Our young players get excited about this as it gives everyone an opportunity to contribute right away. However, the downside of that is when multiple injuries do occur it can have a much more significant effect on our overall team's success.
After handling the adversity you mentioned this year, what is your plan moving forward ?
We will bring in our third recruiting class this fall, and it has been important for us to get our class composition balanced, which I believe we have accomplished.
We are bringing in three pitchers, four two-way guys and four positon players which is similar to our last two recruiting classes. We believe that every year we are bringing in players who are not only great fits for our school but for our plan and coaching style as a staff. It is coming together, but it takes time. As I said before, at Richmond we don't have the luxury of waiting until the middle of the season to reassess what our needs will be for the next season. Sometimes you don't find out until April that perhaps a player that we projected to be a starting position player is better as a pitcher or will take a longer to develop. We can't go out and recruit junior colleges late and reload. That is why class composition is so important as well as making sure we get it right when we are recruiting the first time around. I really do appreciate my staff and the creativity and hard work it takes.
How do you feel about next year and going forward?
We have the majority of our pitching staff back and after a summer season of development for most of our players, recovery for our injured and adding some quality young arms I feel a whole lot better about things. We do have some highly driven young men and I know that they will get themselves to where they need to be by the start of the 2017 season.
We will have a few holes to fill offensively obviously, but I am confident that some of our returnees will step up as well as a few of our incoming recruits, who are talented enough to fill right in. We really got a great group of guys that all get along and support each other. I think the guys trust us as a staff and I really like this team.
I promise you we will get where we need to be and compete for a championship year-in and year-out. It's about building a strong foundation first and then going from there.
