Three Strikes: Gonzaga, Patriot League Tournament, Brandon Lankford

Image credit: Gonzaga RHP Alek Jacob (Photo courtesy of Gonzaga Athletics)

Gonzaga has all the hallmarks of a team capable of winning a regional. 

It’s a veteran group used to winning. Its lineup runs (conservatively) eight deep at any given time with guys who have been effective players at the plate this season. Righthander Alek Jacob is an unflappable staff ace who threw a no-hitter earlier this season against Pepperdine. As a group, its pitching staff has a 2.42 ERA and a .201 opponent batting average in West Coast Conference play. 

The monkey wrench thrown into Gonzaga’s plans, though, is a lengthy Covid-19 pause that came at just the wrong time. 

Before their WCC series with San Diego was postponed three weeks ago, kicking off the extended break, the Bulldogs had won four straight series, six games in a row—including wins against Washington and Washington State—and 15 of their last 18. 

“I thought we were playing really well,” said Gonzaga coach Mark Machtolf. “We were winning games we shouldn’t have won, some days we’d blow people out and some days we were just really efficient with our offense, and we were getting really consistent pitching.”

The pause also cost the team some of the most important games remaining on the schedule for resume-building purposes. At the time the USD series was postponed, the Toreros were tied with Gonzaga at the top of the WCC standings and were working on a postseason resume of their own. 

Three different scheduled games against Oregon have also been taken off the table (at least for now) for a team that has gone 5-2 against Pac-12 competition this season. 

The one silver lining here is that Gonzaga doesn’t necessarily need to do anything to build an at-large resume, because it already has one that’s likely going to be good enough. 

The Zags are 27-13 overall and 14-4 in the WCC, which has it a half-game up on USD, which just lost a series to Brigham Young. The Bulldogs have an RPI currently in the top 25, and a road series win against Texas Christian in mid March is arguably the best series win for any mid-major team in the country. 

If anything, not getting those games against USD and Oregon before the host sites are announced later this week might end up costing the Bulldogs a chance to host rather than doing anything to affect their at-large hopes. The administration put in a bid to host, and it has an outside shot at hearing its name called, but a little more separation at the top of the WCC standings and another win or two against a top-flight Pac-12 foe wouldn’t have hurt. 

But that just means, at worst, Gonzaga is a No. 2 seed that knows it can play with anybody in the country. 

“I think this team just doesn’t lack for confidence,” Machtolf said. “We have an older group, and I know a lot of other teams are in the same boat with that because of Covid, (but) it’s a pretty mature group. Even before that, they don’t lack for confidence, and have always thought that they can play with anybody.”

Now the trick is to get the team back up to speed in time for the postseason. 

With no conference tournament in the WCC this season, Gonzaga has three weekend series remaining—on the road against Portland this weekend, at home for San Francisco and at home against San Diego in the rescheduled series from earlier this season. 

Things are tracking for Gonzaga and USD to end up playing for the regular-season title over the final weekend of the season, so Machtolf and his staff will certainly want to have the team feeling like itself by then, one week before regionals are to begin. 

It will be helpful in the pursuit of getting back in the swing of things that Gonzaga is a veteran team, as Machtolf alluded to. 

On the mound, second-year freshman righthander Gabriel Hughes (4-3, 3.23) and fourth-year junior righthander Michael Spellacy (2.80 ERA, 35.1 IP) have been key contributors, but it’s Jacob who sets the tone for that unit. 

The fourth-year junior has done it all in his career in Spokane, including this season, when he’s done everything from throwing the aforementioned no-hitter to saving three games. A low-slot slinger who gets outs with movement and deception more than stuff, he moved into the rotation about a month before the pause and has flourished. 

In conference play, Jacob has a 2.15 ERA,  49 strikeouts compared to seven walks and a .145 opponent batting average. 

“He’s been like that for three years for us,” Machtolf said. “We call him the Swiss Army knife. He’s had every role.”

The lineup is led by fifth-year junior third baseman Brett Harris (.373/.500/.547), fifth-year junior shortstop Ernie Yake (.316/.419/.383), fifth-year senior first baseman Andrew Orzel (.290/.391/.407), fourth-year junior center fielder Guthrie Morrison (.281/.369/.392) and fourth-year junior catcher Tyler Rando (.271/.377/.398), who all bring plenty of experience to the table, with less experienced players like third-year freshman outfielder Grayson Sterling (.303/.372/.475) sprinkled in. 

There are no superstars in that mix, but taken together, it’s a deep lineup full of players who aren’t going to be awed by the moment. 

“We have a lot of guys through the lineup that have been that guy on a particular day and come through,” Machtolf said. 

Gonzaga has what it takes to win a regional, and it has shown that time and again this season, never more than during the month of April. A Covid-19 pause slowed that momentum, making these last three weeks vital for ensuring it gets back to being that kind of team by June.

“The kids have been really resilient all year (with) any kind of adversity we’ve had,” Machtolf said. “I’m confident they’ll face this the same way.”

Patriot League Tournament On Deck

The Patriot League was one of two conferences to finish up the regular season last weekend, with the SWAC being the other, and Lehigh emerged as the league’s regular season champion with a 17-10 record, two wins better than the 15-10 mark Army put together. 

With the conference being split into a North and South Division in 2021, the top two teams from each division now move on to the Patriot League Tournament, which is, as always, a two-weekend event. 

This weekend, Lehigh and Navy, the two best teams in the South, will play a best-of-three series at Lehigh, with Army and Lafayette from the North doing the same in West Point. The winners of those two series will play for the automatic bid next weekend. 

The Mountain Hawks have to be considered the favorites given the regular-season title, and having the best pitching staff in the conference doesn’t hurt. 

Righthander Mason Black (7-2, 2.51) is the best prospect and statistically the best pitcher in the conference, but by many measures, his teammate Matt Svanson (3-4, 2.73) is the second-best arm in the conference, and by the way, lefthander Luke Rettig (2-3, 3.86) isn’t far behind. Righthander Sam Wurth (2.08 ERA, 21.2 IP, 4 SV) is also an excellent stopper in the bullpen. 

But there are also plenty of reasons that the next two weekends will be far from a coronation for Lehigh. For one, its offense is just average, with both Navy and Army posting better numbers. Its team defense also hasn’t been very good, as a .959 fielding percentage is fifth out of six teams in the conference, and its 27 passed balls are 11 more than any other team. 

Both service academy teams have winning DNA in the programs that could make a run to a regional plausible. 

Navy, which has the highest batting average (.286) and on-base percentage (.394) in the conference, still has players like righthander Charlie Connolly (4-1, 3.62), righthander Trey Braithwaite (4.84 ERA, 22.1 IP), first baseman Zach Stevens (.324/.406/.546) and catcher Christian Policelli (.325/.448/.463) who were integral parts of the 2019 team that won a regular-season championship. To boot, it is also the best defensive team in the league, with a .979 fielding percentage. 

Army, meanwhile, might have the best all-around team of the bunch. It is second in hitting at .275, second in ERA at 4.85 and second in fielding percentage .974. It leads the conference in home runs with 21, leads in strikeouts on the mound with 332, and not surprisingly, it leads in stolen bases by a wide margin with 68. And that style of play offensively is always an X-factor. The Black Knights will look to put runners in motion and press the issue on offense, and that can make life difficult for any opponent. 

Lafayette is the real underdog in this event, but its presence should be celebrated, as it is the first time it has made back-to-back appearances in the Patriot League Tournament since 2011-2012. The Leopards have a pesky offense that is the second-hardest to strike out in the conference, led by on-base machines such as shortstop Justin Johnson (.300/.406/.433), second baseman Ethan Stern (.273/.463/.451) and right fielder Pete Ciuffreda (.297/.436/.451), the top three hitters in the order. 

Perhaps the semifinals this weekend are a bit off your radar, but at the very least, take a minute to appreciate that its presence means that postseason college baseball is back. 

In Appreciation of Brandon Lankford

UNC Asheville fifth-year senior third baseman Brandon Lankford fits the bill of the classic mid-major slugger who has quietly produced for his entire career with very little fanfare outside of the program.

He came into the season a career .274/.381/.511 hitter with 35 home runs, highlighted by a first team all-conference performance in 2019, when he hit a career-high .287 and slugged 15 homers. 

This season, on April 10 against Winthrop, Lankford hit his 43rd career homer, which set the UNCA career record for round-trippers. But that’s just the biggest highlight in a season full of them for Lankford, who is enjoying a career-best season to cap off his career. 

He’s hitting .348/.441/.684 with 16 homers, all career highs. And while there is still swing and miss in his game at the plate, he has made strides in that department. He has struck out 45 times this season in 42 games. That’s a high number, but it’s way down from a high of 90 strikeouts in 2018. 

Perhaps the safe bet at this stage is that the Big South player of the year will come from the Campbell quartet of Zach Neto, Matthew Christian, Spencer Packard and Connor Denning, the top four hitters in the league, but don’t count Lankford out of that race, especially if he finishes strong. 

The honor would be a fitting finish to a very strong career that happened not just in the shadows of western North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, but also in the shadows of bigger-name players and programs nationally.