Baseball Lurches on at Northridge

Mike Batesole won’t call it a baseball team yet, but make no mistake, a bunch of guys in Cal State Northridge gear spent Monday afternoon practicing hard at the ball yard.

Well, maybe not a bunch of guys.

“This is it,” said Batesole, the Northridge coach, surveying the sprinkling of 17 players around Matador Field. Only four were part of last season’s team that went 42-20.

“Can you believe it?”

When the Northridge baseball program was cut in June along with three other men’s sports, the best returning players and recruits found other schools. The program was reinstated less than three weeks before the fall term began, and Batesole scrambled to find enough bodies to fill a roster.

Now the bodies must become ballplayers capable of competing at the Division I level by spring. Fall practice will last three weeks.

“We’re at a point where I know everybody’s name and can spot them from across the field,” Batesole said. “Now we see what they can do. We’re putting guys in different circumstances and seeing how they react.”

Only six pitchers are on the roster, so three position players who pitched in high school will audition on the mound today: sophomore first baseman Adrian Mendoza, senior infielder Mike McNeely and freshman catcher Rick Helland.

Batesole resisted adding walk-on players from around campus simply to beef up the roster. He plans on filling holes in January after cuts are made at other schools.

Tim Montez, the Northridge pitching coach last season now at Arkansas, called Batesole on Monday and mentioned that he had 18 pitchers.

“He told me he’ll have to cut at least four and he’ll ask them if they want to come to Northridge,” Batesole said. “That’s where our program is.”

Besides Mendoza and McNeely, only senior third baseman Chris MacMillan and sophomore catcher Jeremy Sickles returned. Promising newcomers include shortstop Akia Hill, a transfer from Cal State Fullerton, and Darren Dyt, a transfer from Fresno State.

Helland, from Buena High, and Eric Horvat, an infielder from Hart High, are the only freshmen. Top recruits were reluctant to commit to Northridge because the program is guaranteed for only one season.

Most of the players are in situation similar to that of Tim Baron, a sophomore transfer from Cal State Fullerton who attended Thousand Oaks High. Baron was told by Fullerton coaches after last season that his scholarship would not be renewed.

“What we all are looking for is an opportunity to play the game we love,” Baron said.