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BLOOMSBURG — When Joe Devine held his first team meeting as Bloomsburg’s baseball coach in February, he told the Panthers his goal was to qualify for the playoffs.
He was met with both blank stares and looks of disbelief.

Can you blame the players?

After all, the Panthers’ roster has 23 players, and 14 of them are returners. The team was coming off a 1-19 campaign and five wins in the past two years — all while losing top hit leader Shane Frey, who decided to focus on football.

Devine, who also served as the junior legion coach to many of the varsity players last summer, already saw the potential and team bond. According to him, the players just needed to clean up the things they could control, such as walks on the mound and errors in the field, to turn close losses into wins.

Lo-and-behold it worked, as they went from 68 errors last spring to 43 this year and 122 walks given up to 82. The wins started following the stats as a 4-0 start to the season turned into a 7-3 campaign. Needing only three victories to reach the goal — something last achieved by the program in 2019 — the Panthers dropped four of their next five. But a pair of wins against arch-rival Central Columbia, the last one on enemy soil, made it that much sweeter.

“The belief really came after the great start, and players started looking to where we can find six more wins, and we ended up finding seven more,” Devine said. “... That moment we clinched at Central came in a big game, on a supercharged night game. They stayed focused in the moment, and it was a rewarding experience.”

It was gratifying for Devine to see because the Panthers were coming off a potential playoff-clinching, heartbreaking loss at Hughesville. Bloomsburg surrendered a three-run lead in the seventh inning and another lead in the eighth. He and his staff were not only preaching to not have snowball effects during games, but don’t let the tough losses carry over. They received the message as the team won two of its last three games to end the season.

It accumulates to No. 8 Bloomsburg hosting No. 9 Towanda this morning at 11 in a play-in game. The winner travels to No. 1 Wellsboro on Tuesday.

On the same page

Devine says today’s game was because the players bought into the goal.

After meeting with everyone individually shortly after being hired in November, Devine came away with the same feeling from the players: Nobody was having fun and there was a need for a culture change.

There was a never a need to mesh the group. They all got along. They’re all seen together playing hacky sack or at McDonald’s — maybe both — in their spare time. As they inched closer to their goal of 10 wins and a playoff clincher, Ryan Traugh came up with the idea to use his mother’s shop, Locks of Love, to bleach everybody’s hair — Devine’s included.

The first-year coach went along with it as a surprise, only to where the varsity cap covers so people in public don’t see it; anything to appease the team and show he’s along for the ride.

“It’s a really good camaraderie right now. It’s everything I want to see as a coach,” Devine said. “We’re bonding as a team and everyone is telling me they’re enjoying their time.”

He didn’t get to this point alone. Devine leaned on seniors Brady Hendricks and Hunter Hunsinger to lead by example for how he wanted the team to play.

“They bought into what I was trying to preach. That helped me a lot in getting the team to buy into our style of baseball and look into things with a different perspective after going 1-19 last year,” Devine said. “We knew something had to change.”

Winning helps cure all. For Devine, he knew it came down to throwing strikes, picking up the ball, and taking quality at-bats.

The team saw an offensive spike, scoring nearly 50 more runs and cutting down on strikeouts from 181 to 141. Devine also likes to be aggressive, keeping opponents on their feet with bunts and stolen bases, seeing an increase in the latter by over 35 from last season (77 this spring).

Hendricks has led the offensive charge with a team-high 19 hits, six going for triples. The team also has four batters — Clayton Lunger, Ryan Traugh, Ethan Oliver and Brayden Holbert — with double-digit hits and stolen bases, applying the team’s mantra in every game.

Holbert hasn’t only been getting done at the plate. He’s assumed the role as the team’s ace. In 58 1/3 innings, he’s got nearly a 6-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio (71-15) and 1.85 ERA. The junior is the epitome of what Devine wants in a pitcher, and says he, like the rest of the team, isn’t nervous for the playoffs.

“I don’t think this team has nerves. They’re just so excited to play in a playoff game on Saturday,” Devine said. “I know some teams get to rest up for a few days and use their best guy when we are possibly playing another game, but we are just taking it one inning at a time at this point and excited to see what everybody can do.”

To think they are at this point because Devine saw the window of opportunity was open with a strong core of returning talent. He believed in them and their solidarity, expressing that on Day 1. Those eyes of disbelief will now turn and see friends and family watching them in a home playoff game today.

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