Avila Baseball Makes Maiden Voyage to KCAC Tournament

For the first time since they've been part of the conference, Avila baseball has qualified for the KCAC Tournament, and postseason play officially begins this week. The 2024 KCAC Baseball Championship will roll out its new 8-team format, now featuring tournament debutants Avila as the No. 7 seed, starting this Wednesday morning in Great Bend, Kansas.

To break into the postseason for the first time in six years, Avila baseball had to author its best regular season in six years. The Eagles finish the regular season 22-28 overall, 17-19 in league play, both by far the most wins the team has tallied since coming to the KCAC ahead of the 2019 season. After winning nine conference games in each of the last two seasons, Avila nearly matched that two-year total this season alone. Avila's 22 overall victories are their most since winning 30 in 2018, Avila's least year in the HAAC, which concluded in Avila's most recent postseason appearance and most recent postseason victory.

The Eagles ran into a bit of a rough patch when the calendar flipped from March to April this season, putting their path to that elusive first postseason berth in a bit of jeopardy, but the Eagles finished strong, winning two games against Southwestern and York on consecutive April Tuesdays to assure themselves of their spot in the tournament.

Before that April slump where the team lost seven straight to open the month, Avila had made its mark on the KCAC by getting off to a stellar start in league play, setting themselves up to achieve their collective dream of making it to Great Bend for the first time. Shaking off a frustrating home sweep at the hands of Dakota State, which ultimately finished second in its conference, the Eagles kicked off KCAC action with a dominant sweep of Bethany. The team first really proved that this year would be special with a three-game sweep of Ottawa to open the month of March, which was followed by series wins over Evangel, Friends and McPherson.

All four of those teams that Avila defeated in March are in the postseason field less than two months later, a big reason why Avila is in that field as well. Making matters more interesting for many teams this season was the KCAC's somewhat clandestine decision to expand the postseason field from six teams to eight once Evangel joined the conference ahead of this season, a move that kept a lot of teams in contention into the final week of the season and, of course, ultimately allowed Avila to secure a KCAC postseason berth for the first time.

In line with that change, the conference has adopted a unique approach to the eight-team field. Unlike the somewhat standard format employed in the softball championship elsewhere in Great Bend this week, the baseball event will essentially feature two four-team brackets. Avila is the No. 7 seed, and was grouped with No. 2 Tabor, No. 3 OKWU and No. 6 Friends. Unlike in softball, where there is plenty of bouncing around, there is no way that Avila would see any of the four teams in the other bracket until the championship series on Sunday.

There has been a lot of work put into this season by a lot of people in order to make this appearance achievable. Captains Landon Vahle, Bryce Culp and Paxton Andrade have all been a part of this program for three years, as have many others, and all have helped take this team to a place it literally has never been before. An experience Eagle lineup is anchored by the on-base wizardry of Culp, the all-around excellence of Vahle, the understated consistency of Gio Armas, and the recent big power strokes of Ricky Dober and Zach Dillman. Literally every other regular hitter – Andrade, Tyler King, JJ Stubblefield, Rusten Traxler, Robby Cable and Ronnie Nowak, to name a few – have all had their moments or their key series at different points of the season to help bolster the team at different times.

For the pitching staff, a lot of good things have come together to help make this happen. Alex Walton, Logan Empson and Cashen Schranz have all had career years to make up the Eagles' main starting pitching staff. Freshmen Austin Rodgers and Corbin Hamman have come on strong to carve out critical roles. Veterans Armando Arguello and Dominic Davies remain go-to high-leverage options, and experienced Eagles Jack Dotterer and Zach Zwicky will factor in as well.

This is certainly a dream achieved for head coach Matt Carpenter, who was Avila's assistant coach under his longtime friend Daryl Cronk when the Eagles last appeared in the postseason in 2018. In his now three years as either acting or full-time head coach of the Eagles, Carpenter has underscored Great Bend as the main dream destination for his team. The Eagles have team-issued practice shirts that solely have "Great Bend" written on them, a reminder of the place they one day expect to play.

And finally, that day has arrived, albeit a little later than the team was expecting. Weather has already hampered plans and game schedules in Great Bend, with rain shifting the first day of the tournament from Wednesday (May 1) to Thursday (May 2) and the championship series from Saturday to Sunday. No other details have been changed; all times and matchups remain, just pushed back one day. Avila will now open up the 2024 KCAC Baseball Championship on Thursday against No. 2-seeded Tabor at 12:15 PM. The winner of that game will then face the winner of Oklahoma Wesleyan vs. Friends on Friday at 12:15, while the loser of Avila's game will face the loser of that other matchup on Friday at 9 AM, the first game of the day.

That is the gameplan for the week as of late Tuesday afternoon, but with weather imminent and very likely throughout the week in Great Bend, game dates and times could change, and could change repeatedly. Be sure to stay tuned to Avila Athletics on social media as well as avilaathletics.com for any and all updates from this year's postseason.