For the players who inhabit it, a baseball locker room is a special, almost sacred place.
So much more than a place to change clothes and store gear, a locker room is a gathering place where only the players and team personnel are typically allowed, and anyone outside of the team is clearly designated a visitor.
It’s a place for the members of the team to hang out and watch TV and get to know each other, just as it’s a place for open discussion and mediation of conflict among team members.
The Seattle University baseball team is 24-14 overall and 11-3 in the Western Athletic Conference, angling for its first NCAA regional berth since 1954, and appreciates the value of a locker room more than most of its NCAA Division I brethren.
The Redhawks have only had one of their own for a year and a half.
“It’s a huge deal, and I really can’t over-state how important it is for us to have a locker room,” said Seattle senior right-hander and former Shorecrest star Ted Hammond, a top starter on the best pitching staff in the Western Athletic Conference and a leading voice in that locker room. “It’s great that all of the guys can get together even if we’re not getting ready for a game.”
The construction of the locker room in the Connolly Complex, along with the turfing of the Redhawks’ home field at Bannerwood Park in Bellevue, increased buy-in from players and coaches and continued support from boosters, have coincided with the steady improvement of the program since coach Donny Harrel resurrected Seattle baseball in 2010.
The team’s win total has increased in each of the last three full seasons, from 21 in 2013 to 26 in 2014 and 31 in 2015.
With Harrel’s steady hand on the tiller and the performance and leadership of local players like Hammond, redshirt senior right-hander Grant Gunning and redshirt sophomore right-hander Austin Hansen, the Redhawks are tied with Sacramento State atop the WAC and earned their first victory over neighboring Washington since 2014 on April 19.
Hammond, Gunning and Hansen have guided the Seattle pitching staff to a team earned run average of 3.39, tops in the WAC. The team’s .299 team batting average is also the best in the conference.
“We don’t get to where we’re at without guys like Hammond and Gunning, who have been here for four and five years, being a big part of it,” Harrel said. “Ted’s the winningest pitcher in program history and has really taken on a leadership role and kept us moving in the right direction.”
Hammond took the ball for the Redhawks series opener against Grand Canyon on April 15 and halted Seattle’s two-game losing skid that followed nine straight wins. He threw seven strong innings in a 10-3 win.
Hansen pitched under the radar at Kamiak, but has switched to a low three-quarters arm slot under Harrel and Redhawks associate head coach Elliott Cribby and has become an important piece of Seattle’s bullpen. He’s 1-1 with three saves and a 6.28 ERA that has been inflated by consecutive rough outings, one of which came in 40 mile-per-hour winds at North Dakota.
He’s pitching in his first season after Tommy John surgery.
“Austin has been a calming presence at the back end of the bullpen, where we’re so freshman-dominant,” Harrel said. “His development has been great, he’s shown really good maturity and helped to solidify a good pitching staff.”
Gunning, who attended classes at King’s High School in Shoreline while playing varsity baseball for Snohomish before the Knights fielded a varsity squad, is another valuable weapon out of SU’s bullpen. He shows hitters a different look with his standout changeup, and its impact is magnified after hitters have seen high 80s and low 90s velocity from Seattle’s starters.
Gunning is 1-1 in 12 appearances with a 2.92 ERA for Seattle, and earned the victory in the team’s 4-1 win over Grand Canyon on April 16 with four innings of scoreless relief.
“The last five years have showed me how to go about playing the game the right way, and how to not go about playing the game,” said Gunning, who took a medical redshirt in 2013 and is also a Tommy John survivor. “When I first got here, the first couple of recruiting classes were mostly junior college guys who were not all completely bought in to what we were doing, in my opinion. As the program has improved, the guys that have come in have that hunger to get better, and with the coaches pushing us harder, a successful season for us is now making a regional, when it used to be just to get to 25 or 30 wins.”
The Redhawks had the same goal of reaching a regional last season, only to come up agonizingly short.
Seattle had two chances to beat Cal State Bakersfield in the finals of the WAC’s double elimination conference tournament, but surrendered leads in the eighth inning or later in both games.
Success in the conference tournament is paramount for Seattle, as the WAC has been a one-bid league in each of the past three seasons.
“After literally being a pitch away last season, I definitely think that has impacted this year’s success,” Hansen said.
In one of the team’s first meetings this fall, Hammond stood in front of his teammates in their remodeled locker room and declared that history would not repeat itself, and that the Redhawks would not feel the way they felt after those two losses again.
Making a regional would not only validate the combined 12 years that Hammond, Gunning and Hansen have given to the Seattle baseball program, but the university’s decision to revive the program.
“When I was a freshman it seemed so unrealistic,” Hammond said of making the NCAA tournament. “Now it’s here and we expect to get it. It would mean everything to me and people would see how far the program has come and what Donny’s done here.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
