{"id":8733,"date":"2013-02-18T09:38:03","date_gmt":"2013-02-18T14:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=8733"},"modified":"2014-05-20T13:11:06","modified_gmt":"2014-05-20T18:11:06","slug":"tartan-pride-baseball-team-returns-to-action-this-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2013\/02\/18\/tartan-pride-baseball-team-returns-to-action-this-spring\/","title":{"rendered":"Tartan Pride baseball team returns to action this spring"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Sinclair men\u2019s baseball team is returning this February to attempt to win their fifth straight Ohio Community College Athletic Association Championship.<\/p>\n

Last season the Tartan Pride won 44 games, which earned them a #3 overall ranking in the National Junior College Athletic Association poll.<\/p>\n

That ranking did not carry over to this year, so Sinclair will begin the season unranked.<\/p>\n

Sixth-year head coach Steve Dintaman said that being ranked to start the season isn\u2019t a big concern.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve never been preseason ranked in my tenure,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just the way it is, there [are] 16 teams in Michigan and there are four or five in the south and they (the north region of the District 12) take all those votes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pride are returning 11 players (seven starters) and will begin the season with a road trip to Tennessee to play the University of South Carolina \u2014 Salkehatchie and #12 Walters State Community College on Feb. 16 and 17.<\/p>\n

Dintaman said his pitching staff is probably the strongest and deepest group on the team. They have a platoon of strong arms who are capable of carrying the team to another conference championship.<\/p>\n

As for the other side of the ball, the Tartan Pride offense is returning seven of nine everyday positional players for a team that held a batting average of .313 last year. Dintaman said having that kind of experience is immeasurable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole outfield that we have is going to be made up of second-year players, guys that are returners, guys that know what needs to happen and what goes on,\u201d Dintaman said. \u201cIt should be interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dintaman expects a big year from his sophomores, especially his infielders Austin Downing and Matt Sullivan. Downing held a .339 batting average last season, knocking in 40 runs as well, a team high. Dintaman said that Sullivan was touted as the team\u2019s best overall player because of his versatility and work ethic.<\/p>\n

Dintaman also expects big numbers from his new everyday catcher, sophomore Darwin Argumedo.<\/p>\n

The catcher from Cartagena, Columbia said he expects the team to be ready to compete for another conference title this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we got a pretty good team,\u201d Argumedo said. \u201cWe all work hard. But I think we need to take things one game at a time. When we focus on one game at a time, then we\u2019ll have 40 [wins] and then we\u2019ll win the conference and keep going from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ohio Community College Athletic Conference season starts March 22 against Owens Community College and Dintaman feels the team will be ready.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very excited about our schedule for the upcoming season,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have scheduled some tough non-conference games and we\u2019ll play three preseason ranked teams before conference season begins. Our goal remains the same \u2014 win the conference and win the regional. The regional champion receives an automatic berth to the World Series and that\u2019s where we want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those who are interested can follow the team via the application gamechanger at gamechanger.io\/home and searching for Sinclair.<\/p>\n

Select games will also be broadcast courtesy of Gem City Sports Network. To find out more, visit gemcitysports.com.<\/p>\n

Stats and information courtesy of Sinclair Baseball records, NJCAA.org, OCCAC.org and Dintaman\u2019s 2013 season preview.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Sinclair men\u2019s baseball team is returning this February to attempt to win their fifth straight Ohio Community College Athletic Association Championship. Last season the Tartan Pride won 44 games, which earned them a #3 overall ranking in the National Junior College Athletic Association poll. That ranking did not carry over to this year, so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-2gR","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8733"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8735,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8733\/revisions\/8735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}