Tigers Hurlers Complete Successful Summers
LOS ANGELES, Calif. (Aug. 19, 2009) – Weeks after the conclusion of the spring semester when many students were packing their bags to go home for the summer, a pair of Occidental’s top hurlers packed their cleats and gloves and headed off to two respectable and very competitive summer baseball leagues. With one in Palm Springs and the other in Oregon, the experiences they had and skills that they honed were very similar and entirely rewarding.
During the last two springs, Brooks Belter and Ross Pomerantz have made enormous strides to become two of the most reliable pitchers on the Tigers’ staff. This summer, they used their respective opportunities to improve by playing baseball in two well-known summer baseball leagues.
Belter, whose right arm earned him a spot in the Tigers’ rotation mid-Spring, becoming possibly the most dominant arm on the staff by late April, traveled east to Palm Springs where he played for the Power of the Southern California Collegiate Baseball League. Pomerantz, a southpaw, headed north to Oregon where he competed in the West Coast Collegiate Baseball League (WCCBL). During his rookie campaign Pomerantz was a starter until arm troubles sidelined him, but used last off season to strengthen the arm and became the Tigers’ go-to guy out of the pen by the end of the spring of 2009.
Occidental Head Coach Jason Hawkins, who coached in Palm Springs during 2006 and 2007, was part of a connection that got Belter to the Power. Both years that Hawkins was coaching in Palm Springs, the Power won the SCCBL and in 2006 they placed 17th at the NBC World Series. While they traditionally stock their roster with Division I talent, Belter was the lone Division III player on the roster this summer, and certainly held his own.
This summer the Power once again dominated SCCBL play with a 34-7 overall record and captured the crown outright in a 3-game series sweep of the Orange County Pioneers in championship play. Belter similarly dominated hitters with a .98 ERA in 18 innings pitched. Opponents batted a measly .138 against him and he struck out 18 while walking only 11.
Most impressive, though, was his ability to induce groundballs (2.5:1 ratio).
“Brooks and I talked at the end of the season about what he needed to do this summer and we both agreed that groundball to fly ball ratio was key,” said Hawkins. “He needed to go out and pitch to contact and he did just that. The strikeouts will come for him.”
With Belter in the desert, Pomerantz traveled up to Corvallis, Ore. where he began the summer with the defending champion WCCBL Corvallis Knights. Last summer as the pitching coach for the Knights, Hawkins again used his influence to get Pomerantz an early call up. Initially he was intended to be a roster fill-in for Division I players arriving late but his early success lead to an extension of his initial contract.
“Ross pitched very well for us early, so much so that I felt like we had to take him on the first road trip,” commented Brooke Knight, skipper of the Knights.
In fact, he was nearly perfect. In three relief appearances, Pomerantz earned one victory and had an ERA of 0.00, with opponents batting just .091 against him.
The rest of his summer was similarly successful. After his stint with the Knights came to an end, Pomerantz joined the Portland Lobos (of the WCCBL-Portland, one of two feeder leagues for the WCCBL) and picked up where he left off with the Knights. Working himself into the starting rotation, Ross went 2-1 with a 3.55 ERA in 25.1 innings pitched. Opponents again only hit .178 off of him and he managed to strike out 25 hitters. His combined numbers for both clubs are quite impressive: 3.10 ERA, 3-1, 29 IP, 28 Ks and .168 opp. avg.
“I was pleased with both Ross and Brooks’
improvements over the course of the spring,” said Hawkins,
“but the summers that both of them had were exceptional. The
demands of the summer are very mental and to be
able to handle that strain and excel as they both did, I
couldn’t be happier for them and us.”
