Philip George, Spring 2009 Assistant Sports Editor
A season of turnover, a season of pitfalls and of surges, and a season that came up just short has come to a close for the Brahmas.Pierce College finished the 2008 baseball season fourth in the Western State Conference with a conference record of 15-13 and an overall record of 24-20.It was a year of brand new faces for Pierce, as their season-starting roster consisted of 20 freshmen out of 26 players, all led by first-year head coach Joe Arnold.”I think we learned a lot during the season,” Arnold said. “I think the effort was outstanding.”The first half of the season saw inconsistency, with the Brahmas compiling a 13-10 record by the WSC Spring Break Tournament, the halfway mark of the season.After dropping all three contests in the tournament, the Brahmas returned to in-conference play, losing five in a row, and falling to 13-18.Mired in an eight-game losing streak, Arnold shook up the pitching staff by shifting freshman closer Carter Whitman into the starting rotation.Whitman’s scoreless five-inning relief appearance against Glendale Community College, a tune-up before his debut as a starter, snapped the Brahmas’ skid, and his stellar performance down the stretch helped the Brahmas narrow the gap between them and third place Los Angeles Valley College.The Brahmas won 10 out of their next 12 games, but still needed one more. A win against Mission College, coupled with a Valley loss to Bakersfield College, would have propelled the Brahmas into third place and eligibility for a postseason invitation.Pierce kept up their end, routing Mission 18-9, but Valley also prevailed, eliminating the Brahmas from playoff contention.While members of the team were disappointed at the team’s shortcomings, the season is certainly not viewed as a lost cause. “Overall, we’re upset as a team because we didn’t make the playoffs, but at the same time, we like how we ended our season strong,” said freshman Will Myrick. “We didn’t just roll over and take anything.” Myrick, a pitcher and football linebacker in high school, emerged as one of the Brahmas’ offensive stars during the season, amassing a .387 average – second only to Calvin Culver’s .389 average – while driving in 55 runs, tops on the team. His eight home runs were also second to Culver’s nine.”[Myrick] was symbolically the epitome of what this group had to do – really develop and learn how to play baseball,” Arnold said.Culver, the center fielder in his second and final year at Pierce College, also viewed the season as a positive experience.”It was a good season, a learning process for me more than anything,” Culver said. “It just made me a better ballplayer, a better person and a better teammate altogether.”Although the 2008 season is now in the rear-view mirror, Arnold and the Brahmas will look to take the momentum they built in those final 13 games and carry it all the way into next season.”I’m excited about next year,” Arnold said. “We’ve got a lot of guys coming back who were playing well together at the end of the year.”