UD baseball team contending for first A-10 regular-season title since 2009

“These series creep up on you because you’re always just looking just immediately ahead and not too far in advance,” coach Jayson King said Monday, “but with only two conference series left, the ramifications for winning and losing increase. Once we got through Richmond, our immediate attention turned to Saint Louis. We know what the opportunity presents, so we’re excited about it.”

Next week, in the final week of the regular season, Dayton plays a non-conference game at Toledo (24-25) on Tuesday and then a three-game series at home May 16-18 against Rhode Island (16-25, 8-10).

Saint Louis plays three games at third-place Massachusetts (22-23, 11-7) on the final weekend of the regular season. The Billikens last won the regular-season title in 2018. That was their fifth championship in a seven-year stretch.

Dayton’s only A-10 regular-season championship came in 2009. Its only A-10 tournament title came in 2012.

King credited the consistency of his starting lineup for the team’s success this season.

“It has given us some good run support,” he said. “That’s one thing that really hasn’t changed. I think the defense has been pretty solid throughout the course of the season. I feel better about the pitching today than I did early in the seasonjust because there are some guys starting to throw well that didn’t necessarily throw well early in the season.”

Dayton got off to a 3-1 start. That included an 8-5 victory at No. 6 Vanderbilt in February. It was the program’s first victory against a top-10 team since 1996.

In five three-game series in A-10 play, it has won two of three games four times and swept one series at home against Davidson. It split a two-game series at Virginia Commonwealth when the third game was canceled.

“In general, we’re just trying to be competitive one pitch at a time and show up every series looking to come out on the positive side,” King said. “I think we’ve only lost one series all season, and that was at Wake Forest. These guys have a very good mentality as it relates to that. They know how to keep things in check and control their thoughts and their emotions. When you do that, it gives you a pretty good chance on most weekends.”

Dayton has the second-best team batting average (.299) in the A-10. Sophomore first baseman Eddie Yamin IV leads the offense with 12 home runs and 50 RBIs. He’s hitting .331. He hit .178 with five runs and 19 RBIs last season.

“I think last year he showed glimpses of it, but just like any other freshman, it’s hard to dominate,” King said. “There’s a lot of things that you learn. You come back the next year and you know exactly what the test is and then it’s just a matter of how committed you are to doing well on the test. This kid is one of the most committed guys to having success and doing whatever he needs to make that happen that I’ve ever had. He’s just really focused and really committed and then you combine that with having the talent and the numbers look like they have this season.”

Senior Nick Wissman, a Chaminade Julienne graduate, has the best numbers on the pitching staff. He’s 10-1 with a 2.93 ERA in 21 appearances. He’s not a starter but ranks second on the team in innings pitched (55⅓).

“He’s like a jack-of-all-trades, Swiss army knife, whatever you want to call him,” King said. “He could start if we want him. We know he can do so many different things. We like the value that he presents to the team. He hasn’t gotten nearly the attention that he deserves. Sometimes guys get wins and or they get saves and they kind of back into them. He hasn’t backed into anything. You look at his outings. It’s all pretty labor intensive.”