For the four seniors on the baseball team, May 17 will mark the end of their academic journey. But their time at Saint Louis University will not end with commencement.
The commencement ceremony begins at 10 a.m., and the team’s final home game begins at noon. After that, the Bills will only have the Atlantic 10 Conference Championships left.
“Actually, it is kind of weird [knowing your career is almost over],” senior infielder Ryan Bennett said. “It is amazing how fast these four years have gone.
“You just reflect on the past and try to enjoy the last month of the season even more, knowing it is your last month ever playing collegiate baseball.”
The Billikens play Temple at home and then travel to Camden, N.J., for the A-10 Championships after the last day of final exams. The team still has 10 regular-season games before the A-10s.
During this stretch, the players will be able to concentrate solely on baseball.
“It is different when school is out, because it is the best part of the year,” Bennett said. “You can focus on baseball and not worry about anything else except winning for your team. It is the best part of the year when you are not worrying about school.”
Head Coach Darin Hendrickson said that focusing only on baseball should help the team.
“I hope most of their stresses will be over and that they will be able to have fun together,” Hendrickson said. “I talk to the guys about having pride and wanting their name to be a part of a program that turned something around. We want to end with a good taste in our mouth.”
Bennett said that not having classes will not affect the way the team prepares for games. If anything, the extra time will allow for more sleep at night and more time for practicing.
“Our main focus as college student-athletes is balancing baseball and school,” Bennett said. “Now, we can focus our time and energy on just one thing instead of two.
“Once you take away the time we’re in classes, where we spend most of our time, we can get in the training room or weight room earlier in the morning. When we go home at night, we don’t have to worry about homework; we can just worry about baseball.”
According to Hendrickson, every game is one less day that the seniors have to put on the SLU uniform. Going from something they love, like playing baseball every day, to someone smacking them in the face and telling them it is over is difficult, Hendrickson said.
“It has been a difficult year for us,” he said. “In Atlantic 10 play, we have underachieved. We just don’t have the horses to do it. But the transition of taking over a team that was 21 games under .500 last year, the coaches are proud of the job we’ve done.
“We have made the best with what we have, and I will be interested to see how we play over the next three weeks.”
