St. Michael-Albertville Baseball Opens Strong

With the rules of high school baseball changing a bit to promote defense and “small ball,” the St .Michael-Albertville Knights are thinking the 2012 season is tailor-made for their style of play.

“We’re going to be strong in the field, and we have the speed and talent to get things done at the plate,” said head coach Paul Schumm. “I think the new rules kind of fit us well this season, for sure.”

New regulations on aluminum bats have made them hit more like a wood bat, using a process called “deadening,” which takes the life out of the ball.

The regulations were put in play for both player safety and to bring the game back down to the earth a bit.

That’s music to the ears of guys like Jacob Dzubay, who will serve as the Knights’ ace this season, and fellow pitchers.

“He’s a junior who really had a good season last year, and this year we just need to pick him up,” Schumm said. “The story for us last season was defense. We really have been focusing on our pitching and defense.”

So far, so good. The Knights have opened 2-1, all conference games. The season opener was a 5-2 victory where St. Michael-Albertville was able to take advantage of several key mistakes by the Royals, and got a big 2-for-2 day from Steven Kiesner at the plate.

After falling 8-4 to Big Lake on the road, STMA topped Becker Thursday in the home opener 5-1, with Dzubay picking up win No. 2 behind seven strong innings and 10 strikeouts.

Garrett Watters led the way with two hits and two stolen bases to lead the way for the Knights.

It’s a squad that’s looking to amend a quick out last season, after falling in the first round of the Section 8-3A tournament.

“We set the bar so high. Last five of six years, we’ve been successful and to get eliminated as early as we did last year was a disappointment to us for sure,” Schumm said.

Senior Shawn Morris agreed.

“We think we’ve got a solid enough team that we can’t make the plays and make a run,” he said. “This is a team that’s a lot more focused this year vs. last year and we’re paying attention to the details. We had a lot bigger plans last year. We have to make more noise this year.”

As for getting ready, it helps that spring has been picture perfect.

“We’ve been inside two days, and that’s it. It’s been really nice for the guys and the ability to adapt to the speed out here,” Schumm said.

St. Michael Albertville hits the road Tuesday for a key matchup at Cambridge. It’s part of a huge week that includes the other conference favorite and last year’s champ, Buffalo, who comes to St. Michael Thursday afternoon.

“I think if you look at it you could put Cambridge and Buffalo up top, and we think we have the ability to be right there. But you have to be sound. You can’t make mistakes. So to have them early, we’ll need some consistency,” Schumm said.

All games begin at 4:30 p.m.

For more information on Knights Baseball go to the team’s website: https://sites.google.com/a/mystma.org/stma-baseball/