Club baseball team waits for warmer weather

The club baseball team is ready to get started, as soon as the weather permits. This team started just over a year ago when several students who were interested in baseball wanted to get a club started.

“Several students came to me about creating a sports club that would be more than what intramurals had to offer,” Kurran Sagan, the recreational leadership coordinator said.

One of those students was Robert Silvers, who helped initiate getting a team together.

“I love the game of baseball and could not believe that a college would not have some sort of program set up for America’s pastime,” Silvers said. “So I started talking to Kurran in September about setting up a meeting for baseball.”

With the help of Ben Fraser, the assistant director of Hunt/Knowles and the advisor to the club, Sagan discussed how the club would run and its overall structure. Once that was finished, a mass e-mail was sent out to get students interested. Just before Christmas, another meeting was set up so the players would know what was going on. The team started practicing at Knowles after the end of J-term.

This club currently has about 25 students and was able to get in the National Club Baseball Association for this season. UW-River Falls was put into a southern league with the Illinois schools. UWRF will play UW-Madison, two Southern Illinois teams and the University of Illinois this season. However, the weather has brought the start of the season to a halt.

“We’ve already had to cancel the last two weekends,” Fraser said. “We were scheduled to play at Illinois and against Madison, but both didn’t happen.”

The team is still waiting for their season to begin. As of right now, there are 15 league games scheduled. Games are held every weekend. UWRF plays their games at Spring Valley, located 25 miles east of River Falls.

Fraser and Sagan tried to work out an agreement that would allow the club to use the River Falls High School’s baseball field, but the school was unable to cooperate.

“It’s just too bad that there isn’t a baseball field available in River Falls,” Fraser said.

As the snow melts away, the club baseball team waits patiently to play ball.