President
honors Harvesters - (6/12)
by Irasema Romero, Reporter
President Dr. Carol Brown recognized the Harvester’s
baseball team for their national championship during
a ceremony Thursday in the pit.
“We knew going into it, this was our year,”
said player, Alan Neill.
During the event, the championship game’s
last inning was presented on video. The celebration
gathered faculty and students to honor the Harvester’s
baseball team. Only two players came to the event
because the others could not be brought together
on short notice.
When the last seconds of the game were shown on
video, the cheering began. As the players celebrated
in the video by piling in the center mound, Coach
Michael Martin said that he still gets goose bumps.
The championship title is not the only honor that
they brought home; Ronny Hawley was named the World
Series’ Most Valuable Player. Out of four
games played in the series, he hit a home run in
three of them, according to Coach of the World Series
Martin. Hawley plans to transfer to Delta
State University in Cleveland, Miss.
“This is a wonderful moment for Eastfield,”
said college president, Dr. Carol Brown. She
said that this year has been great and adds this
championship to the fact that she earned a doctorate’s
degree in the same year.
“Hopefully, we can continue this tradition
of winning in all the athletic programs,”
said Coach Martin.
Former president Rodger Pool, who attended
the celebration, said that he listened to the games
online and that he had a particular interest because
he hired Martin as coach in 2001 after a previous
championship season.
“It’s proven in many ways to be a good
decision,” said Pool.
Athletic Director Anthony Fletcher said that this
championship title is good for Eastfield because
it exposes the college nationally and not every
college has a championship team.
Their second game of the tournament was record
breaking for the Harvesters. They played the
“only shut-out game in the 2006 Division III
Playoffs,” according to the team’s website,
after beating the Suffolk County Community College
Clippers of Selden, NY, 12-0.
The team played a total of four games, with 35
home runs. In the championship series, they
defeated the defending champions, Gloucester County
College from Sewell, NJ. The team visited the Cooperstown
National Baseball Hall of Fame, which according
to Howley added to the excitement of becoming national
champions. |
