Youth Movement

SELINSGROVE, PA — The 2002 Susquehanna baseball team started the season with 19
freshmen and sophomores on its roster. The team paid for the inexperience, going through
a 7-27 season, setting a school-record for losses and enduring losing streaks of 12 and nine
games along the way while finishing last in the Commonwealth Conference with a 5-16
record.
However, fifth-year head coach Tim Briggs did in return find six starting position players
and three pitchers that emerged out of the group of 19 to form a solid-core for the 2003 team.
Overall, the team will return seven starters and four pitchers and with the help of a rigorous
off-season workout program, the 2003 Crusaders may be ready to make run at the Commonwealth
Conference playoffs.
Assisting Briggs this season is Denny Bowers, a former All-Conference outfielder with
the Crusaders entering his second season as an assistant, and Travis Zook, who was the
team’s Most Valuable Player last season as a catcher, is entering his first season as a
Crusader assistant.