Thunderbird baseball team makes playoffs for first time since 2021
The Mesa Community College baseball team finished their regular season with a 5-1 win on Saturday against Scottsdale Community College, clinching the number one seed and home field advantage for the regional playoffs.
The Thunderbirds finish the regular season with a 35-20 overall record, going 20-18 in conference. MCC also finished with a 28-9 record at home, an important factor heading into the postseason.
MCC began the season well, starting 5-3 in their first eight games.
The Thunderbirds would then go on a nine game winning streak beginning with an 11-1 win on Feb. 14 against Glendale Community College.
The season was a roller coaster of streaky play as the team would go just 2-6 in their eight games following the winning streak, starting with a 7-4 loss to Gateway Community College on Feb. 28. The Thunderbirds would then string together six consecutive wins before dropping six in a row immediately afterwards.
Stability would arrive as MCC would go 12-2 in their next fourteen games. Three losses would lead into the season finale win against Scottsdale on Saturday.
Sophomore right handed pitcher Eric Nachtsheim was a standout amongst the team’s pitching rotation, leading the team with 71.2 innings pitched. Freshman right hander Ty Johnson came in second in IP with 54.1.
Sophomore right hander William Fife and sophore left hander Troy Benko rounded out a four man starting pitching unit that MCC relied on for much of the season.
Nachtsheim led the starting rotation in strikeouts with 83 and had the lowest WHIP at 1.17. Fife had the lowest ERA amongst the starters at 2.54 across his 49.2 IP.
Nachtsheim finished tied with sophomore right hander Jacob Anderson from Chandler-Gilbert Community College for fourth in the conference in ERA amongst pitchers who averaged at least one inning per game on the season.
Head coach Tony Cirelli utilized many other pitchers during the season as well, with seven other pitchers getting at least 20.0 IP this season, with freshman lefty Aiden Tipping accounting for 17.2 IP and freshman right hander and infielder Andrew Plutt logging 17.0 IP.
Aiden’s older brother, sophomore right hander Kindrick Tipping, also contributed 23.1 IP on the year.
Freshman left hander Christian Woodward led the team with an impressive 1.36 ERA in 33.0 IP, highest on the team outside of the starting rotation.
The team’s pitching has been a point of emphasis for Cirelli, who has been more involved in the coaching of the pitchers this season as compared to previous years.
According to Cirelli, targeting low in the strike zone has been a constant message throughout the season, leading to improvement.
“They’ve really done a good job, they’re really trying to do it. You see a difference immediately, the guys were really charting just under the string. When the guys are down, they’re really successful,” said Cirelli.
The string is a point within the strike zone at two feet, two inches above the ground where the difficulty of hitting increases, according to Cirelli.
The team finished with the fourth best ERA and WHIP in the conference. The Thunderbirds had a 4.20 team ERA and 1.43 team WHIP.
The Thunderbirds like to get men on base and work the basepaths in order to score runners.
Statistics bear out the strategy, as MCC led the conference in sacrifice hits and also finished fourth in the conference in stolen bases with 114.
MCC also finished with the third lowest total strikeouts on the season with 330.
This season marks the first since 2021 that the Thunderbirds have made the postseason. The last time the Thunderbirds were the one seed was in 2019.
“It’s a great reward for them, because they’ve been working hard all year and just to get that experience of a playoff game and a little bit of excitement and to get to play for who knows how long, it’s exciting,” said Cirelli.
Home field advantage can also play a pivotal role in baseball in particular because of the differences in field shape.
“It’s nice to be here because some of these parks are short and you know, we’re not a home run team. This park really fits us, it’s good to be home,” said Cirelli.
The team’s first playoff game will be on Thursday, May 2 at MCC’s Southern and Dobson campus.
Correction: This article was updated on May 2, at 7:30 a.m. to correct an error that incorrectly listed MCC Baseball’s last visit to the playoffs as in 2019, when it should have been 2021.
