MONTGOMERY, AL (WTKR)- The second half of Old Dominion's baseball season has seen plenty of disappointment for the Monarchs and their fans and that 2023 campaign came to an end on Tuesday.
Kyle Edwards' solo home run in the third inning accounted for ODU's only run and the squad only managed two hits, falling to James Madison, 2-1, in a Sun Belt Tournament play-in game.
"We pitched, certainly, good enough to win," Monarchs' head coach Chris Finwood said. "You give up two runs in a college game, you usually do win and they just gave up one, so we've got to give their pitchers credit."
Edwards' homer gave Old Dominion an early 1-0 lead and the silver and blue had a strong chance to add on during the following frame. With the bases loaded, Edwards made good contact on a pitch down in the zone and sent a line drive to left-center field, but it was hauled in by Trevon Dabney to end the inning. The Dukes would pick up their only runs in their half of the fourth on Kyle Novak's one out, two-run double.
Sam Armstrong started for ODU on the mound and took the hard-luck loss, going 4.1 innings and giving up two runs on six hits while striking out four. John Holobetz tossed the final 3.2 frames for the Monarchs and did not allow a hit.
JMU reliever T.R. Williams was credited with being the story of the game by Finwood. He pitched 4.1 innings in relief and kept Old Dominion out of the hit column.
The loss brings the 2023 season to an end for the Monarchs. After a 20-2 start, ODU stumbled during the second half of the year and lost 10 of its final 17 games, including six of its last seven Sun Belt Conference series. Finwood pointed to a couple of factors that led to the drop-off. He attributed some of the struggles in injuries, but also gave a blunt evaluation of his 2023 group.
"We didn't have good leadership on this team," the head coach pointed out. "It wasn't a team that I was super happy with, really from a make-up standpoint, starting at the beginning of the year. We had a lot of issues we had to deal with and personalities that I wasn't in favor of and so we'll get to dealing with that when we get back."
The 12-year ODU leader would not elaborate as to what some of the issues that plagued his team were during the season.
Despite the struggles within the locker room, Finwood gave a positive outlook when it comes to the future of Monarch baseball. ODU lost a handful of close games this year and the head coach says the program will move forward hopefully having learned from the nail-biting defeats.
"As tough of a year as it was, 32-23 and 15-15 in the league, if that's a bad year, then I think we've set the bar OK," he noted. "We lost four extra-inning games in league play and that's a big difference."
Edwards' round-tripper was the team's 100th home run of the campaign. It marks the third consecutive season the club has hit at least 100 homers.
