Menlo’s baseball program has a long history of success. Since 2010, the baseball team has won four CCS championships and many league championships. But following a disappointing 2-17 finish to last season, the team has seen a sizable increase in the number of players and an improvement on the team’s record, just five games into the season. 

Last year, there were only 18 players in the entire program, and only two of them were seniors. This year’s team has 17 players on the varsity roster alone and four seniors. In only five games, their record is already 3-2-1, which is already better than last year’s record. 

This fast and successful start to the season is very promising, and they have already defeated many teams that are in leagues higher than them, like Menlo-Atherton and American Highschool. The fast start to the season can be attributed to how experienced this year’s team is compared to last year. Almost all of the players on the team are returning from last year. This team is also more senior-led than last year, which attributes to its very quick start. 

Senior captain Jack Geisler was nominated for the Mercurys athlete of the week after he had seven hits in three games. They have also gotten a big lift from junior pitcher Colin Dhaliwal who has been excellent this year. Through five games he has an outstanding ERA of 2.40 and is 2-0 in his starts. The superb pitching doesn’t stop with Dhaliwal, however. Sophomore Jake Sonsini has been impressive in his outings as well. 

During their win against Menlo-Atherton, senior captain Chase Hurwitz and junior Jake Bianchi had two hits in four at-bats, and Hurwitz also added an RBI and one run to push the Knights over the edge. This quick turnaround is surprising to many people outside of the program, but Bianchi said he saw this coming. “We had a lot of inexperienced players last year that all have improved this season. Our biggest issue last year was how young our team was but this year everyone has gotten better,” he said.

The Knights look to keep up their strong start to the season and continue their winning ways into the end of the season and playoffs.