Saint Joe baseball beats Culver, rolls into Penn matchup
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- After the extended winter weather, teams across the area are now playing several games a week. That seems to be a positive for Saint Joseph baseball.
The defending 3A state champions have won 10 games in a row, with the latest coming in a 10-0 victory over Culver Academy in five innings.
"We're finally starting to be more consistent with practices and games," said Indians head coach John Gumpf. "We're not always cancelling and trying to arrange practice inside, so it's just starting to be more consistent which will help down the long run."
The win over Culver was the fourth game in a row that the Tribe has tallied double digit runs. They scored 20, 20, and 18 in the previous three, giving Gumpf plenty to be happy about as the season rolls on.
"It's nice to play baseball in warm weather. The month of April was terrible. We're starting to get warmer weather and the bats are warming up. The guys are excited to play in this."
Though the Indians seem to be back to their championship caliber playing ways, perhaps their biggest regular season game looms. Saint Joe will meet Penn for the top spot in the NIC standings, and Gumpf knows it will be a tall task to hand the Kingsmen their first conference loss.
"We want to approach it like any other game, but that doesn't happen. We're going to face Penn, and they're a great ballclub. They always are, year in and year out. We're just going to practice the next couple days and see what we can do."
Saint Joe and Penn will play on Wednesday at the Indians' home field on Laurel Road.