The Case Western Reserve University baseball team made a return to the NCAA Division III Championships during the 2023 season, finishing the year with an overall record of 28-15.
After the team found itself sitting with a 10-11 record following the first weekend in April, the Spartans went on a tear, winning 17 of their final 19 regular-season games to claim an at-large bid to the NCAA postseason. It was the sixth NCAA Tournament appearance in the program's history and its first since the 2019 campaign.
CWRU was sent to Marietta for the regional round and won the opening game of the tournament 16-2 against Mary Washington behind three-run home runs from junior third baseman
Zack Carinci and first-year second baseman
Jasiah Harris, along with six strong innings on the mound for junior left-handed pitcher
Reece Marley. However, the team suffered an 8-3 setback to 11
th-ranked Marietta the following day and then dropped a 9-8 contest to Adrian in the elimination game to end the season. CWRU nearly overcame a 9-3 deficit in the Adrian game, scoring four runs in the seventh to cut the Bulldogs' lead to two runs, and putting the potential game-tying and go-ahead in scoring position with two outs in the ninth, but ultimately could not equalize the score.
The Spartans went 11-5 in University Athletic Association play during the 2023 season, marking the fourth time the team has won 11 or more UAA games in a season, more than any other school since site play began in the 2017 season. The Spartans finished the year in second place in the UAA standings and were the only team from the conference to receive a bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Spartans swept four-game series at both NYU and Brandeis during UAA play and averaged 9.3 runs per game while batting .336 over their 16 league games.
CWRU also set a single-game record for runs in a game with a 27-2 win over Brandeis on April 21, part of a stretch of seven-straight games and 12-of-14 contests with 10 or more runs scored. It was a small part of a record-breaking offensive campaign for the Spartans, as the squad set program single-season records during the year for the on-base percentage (.421), slugging percentage (.480), triples (19), and walks (215), while recording the second-most runs (376), doubles (114), home runs (27), and runs batted in (356).
Several individual records were also broken during the year as senior catcher
Jack Anderson collected 89 hits and 25 doubles to set new school single-season records, while sophomore outfielder
Nick Harms belted a school-record-tying 11 home runs. Carinci set a new program record with a 32-game hitting streak, stretching from March 14 through May 9.
As a team, CWRU batted .329 and averaged 8.7 runs per game (39
th in DIII), while the pitching staff notched a 4.51 ERA (52
nd in DIII) and held opponents to a .258 average. The team finished the year fifth among Division III squads with 2.65 doubles per game and 33
rd with .44 triples per contest. The Spartans played 11 games against teams that went on to qualify for the NCAA Championships, going 7-4 against those opponents. The team finished the year with the 11
th-toughest strength of schedule among Division III teams in 2023.
Anderson put together one of the best offensive seasons in the program's history, en route to becoming the first CWRU baseball player to be a consensus All-American (named by both the ABCA and D3baseball.com) since former Spartan Rocco Maue in 2018 and is just the fourth consensus All-American in program history along with Andrew Gronski (2014) and Chad Mullins (2011). He was named the UAA Position Player of the Year and secured spots on the All-UAA and All-Region First Teams. In addition to setting the program records for hits and doubles in a season (both of which ranked second among Division III players during the year, he finished the season leading all CWRU players with a .468 average (11
th in DIII), 56 runs, five triples, three home runs, 45 RBIs, 15 stolen bases, a .700 slugging percentage, and a .523 on-base percentage.
While Anderson led the way for the Spartans, a number of other players had standout offensive seasons, including Harms, who earned all-region honors after matching the school record for home runs, in addition to batting .337 with 50 runs, 19 doubles, two triples, 42 RBIs, and 10 stolen bases. Senior outfielder
Trey Haley added a career year, batting .367 with 37 runs batted in and 13 stolen bases and Carinci added a .356 mark at the plate with two home runs, 42 RBIs, and 14 stolen bases. Other standouts offensively included Harris (.329, 33 RBIs, 14 SBs), senior shortstop
Owen Levinson (.327, 20 RBIs), first-year outfielder
Matt Trout (.320, 33 RBIs), sophomore outfielder
Logan Andreyko (.316, 18 RBIs), and senior first baseman
Nick Talarico (.282, 4 HRs, 25 RBIs).
The Spartans' pitching staff featured a strong starting rotation, led by Marley, who was named to the All-UAA Second Team. The southpaw made 12 starts and finished the year with a 7-3 record and a 3.73 ERA, striking out 78 batters (two shy of the school record) in 70 innings and holding opponents to a .243 average. Graduate student lefty
Evan Faxon added a 5-4 record with a 4.34 ERA and tallied 58 strikeouts in 47.2 innings of work, while sophomore
Kyle Gearding made 10 starts and finished the year with a 6-2 record to go along with a 3.31 ERA. Out of the bullpen, junior
Patrick O'Connor made 17 appearances and went 4-1 with a 2.80 ERA and four saves, while junior
Tyler Horvath added a 1-2 record and four saves with a 3.60 ERA over 16 appearances.
In addition to the team's success on the field, the Spartans had a historic year academically as well. Four members of the team – Anderson, Carinci, Harms, and Marley – received Academic All-America honors, more than any other NCAA or NAIA school in 2023. The four Spartans selected were also unprecedented in CWRU Athletics history, as no single team in school history had ever placed more than four members on a CSC (formerly CoSIDA) Academic All-America Team in one year. The four were also joined by Haley on the Academic All-District team in 2023. A total of 25 members of the team received UAA Spring All-Academic recognition for maintaining a cumulative grade point average of 3.3 or higher.
The Spartans earned the following honors during the 2023 season:
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The following were the CWRU team leaders in 2023:
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