With little time remaining in the season, the Washburn Ichabods baseball team fought hard this week to pick up a victory at home against Rockhurst University, 4-1, on April 27 before taking on Emporia State University in two doubleheaders, winning at home on April 29, 10-7 and 4-2, but losing the following day against the Hornets, 10-7 and 7-5.

The first game against ESU is also notable for being Head Coach Steve Anson’s 800th victory, though the seasoned veteran brushes it off.

“That just means I’ve coached a lot of games,” said Anson.

Instead, Anson prefers to discuss the players on his team, particularly the pitching that led to the big win against the Rockhurst Hawks.

“Our pitchers, we threw nine guys out there, and they did a great job,” said Anson.  “We scored enough runs to get that done. That got us some momentum going into Friday against Emporia.”

The pitching was once again a highlight as the Ichabods took on ESU on Friday.

“We got two great pitching performances from Brett Ash in game one and Derek Fogel in game two,” said Anson.  “I thought we played great defense, and we hit the ball and came away with two really big, big wins against No. 4 in the country.”

Conversely, Saturday saw Washburn fall in two tough games at Emporia, but Anson believes the result had nothing to do with home-field advantage; rather it was just the way things played out.

“Either game, we could’ve quit and didn’t,” said Anson.  “We came back, but we just didn’t quite get it done.  To me it’s kind of a flop of days.  We took advantage of our opportunities on Friday, and they took advantage of their opportunities on Saturday.”

Junior outfielder Marcus Peavler scored the first run against Emporia on an RBI double from Andy Petz and is quick to praise his fellow teammates.

“I played pretty good Friday, but everybody really did,” said Peavler.  “That’s probably why we won, because everybody played well, offensive and defense.  We had a lot of big hits.

After a doubleheader at Fort Hays State University on May 3, the Ichabods come home to close the season in a four-game series against Pittsburg State University on May 7 and 8.