Don’t let the record of 8-8 fool you. According to Joe Yourgal, a pitcher for the California University of Pennsylvania Baseball Team, the group is playing better baseball than what their record poses.

“Right now we feel our record does not reflect the kind of baseball we’ve played,” Yourgal said. “We have had good pitching in some games and good hitting in other games it is just a matter of putting it all together.”

That good pitching comes from a lot of younger players, as well, Yourgal said. There are four freshman pitchers that are brand new to the team this year. The four freshmen pitchers are Jacob Herr, Jason Downs, Bradyn Kail and John Bowswer. Yourgal, who is also a catcher, has seemingly taken them under his wing.

“My role as a leader has been to teach them how to approach hitter at this level,” Yourgal said. “This can be a difficult task because the college game is a lot different than high school.”

However, Yourgal takes pride in being a leader among his younger teammates, and even the ones who are seniors like him. Your gal has appeared in every game this season. As a pitcher, he’s pitched five times. As a fielder, he’s been in every game thus far.

“My goals for this year are just to help the team win as best I can,” Yourgal said. “As a team we want to win the PSAC and if we put everything together I think we will have a very dangerous team.”

As for his team’s chemistry, Yourgal admits all is well, and even noted that the trip down south to North Carolina helped the players bond as well.

“We have a good team chemistry we only lost one player in our lineup from last year so we are all familiar with each other,” Yourgal said. “The pitchers are still developing a chemistry with the catchers because there are a lot a freshmen. But overall we have a good team chemistry this season.”

“The south trip is always a fun one,” Yourgal continued. “We have a lot of free time to bond as a team in the hotel and on the bus. On the field this year we were 1-3 but we felt like we should have been 3-1. We gave away leads late in two of the games for example in our last game we had an eight run lead and ended up losing. Going into North Carolina our offense was struggling and it really started to click on the trip. In our last two games we scored 14 runs in each game so it was a good trip for the offense.”

Yourgal, who is a senior, is looking forward to upcoming games, but also wants to focus on making his senior season memorable with his teammates.

“I just want to enjoy my last year with my teammates and playing baseball at Cal U,” Yourgal said. “I’ve had some great experiences here at Cal U and have made friendships that I hope will last after college. So I guess what I’m looking forward to is more great experiences playing baseball with my brothers at Cal.”

The Vulcans have a lot of baseball left to play this season. The team will host Clarion University on Friday at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. in Washington, but will travel up to the Golden Eagles home field on Saturday at the same times.