UBC Thunderbird Baseball Fan Page

Brendan Kornberger, a starting catcher for the Thunderbirds for four seasons from 2004 to 2007, is giving another sport a try. He is on the card of a Mixed Martial Arts event at the River Rock Casino in Richmond on Saturday, Jan. 23. Story in The Province: MMA: Brains, not simply brawn

The event begins at 7 PM. It is sold out.

Coach McKaig remembers that "Brendan was extremely disciplined and focused as a player, and was very strong mentally. One one occasion, he broke a bone in his hand in the first game of a double-header. He played through both that game and the second game, and nobody was aware of the broken bone until the next day."

Update on Jan. 24: Brendan got a solid win on a judges' decision. Story by Chris Parry in the Vancouver Sun: Swinging sisters highlight Richmond's first MMA event

The Thunderbirds come in at #3 in this one: CBB’s NAIA pre-season Top 10

The roster and schedule for 2010 are now available on the official UBC Athletics site.

The schedule contains three new opponents. Whittier College is part of the annual California trip. They are in NCAA Division III, and compete in the same conference as Redlands, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, and Occidental. The Thunderbirds will travel to Seattle on April 6, not to play UDub, but Seattle University, which recently moved from Division II to Division I, and re-instated their baseball team at the same time. The only other D-I team on the schedule is Washington State; the Birds will try to get in a game there at the end of their trip to Lewis-Clark State in March.

The home opponent from the South division of NAIA West will be Oregon Tech. The South division away series will be at Simpson (in Redding, CA), at the end of the California trip. Simpson was on the schedule last year, but the game was cancelled due to bad weather.

All regular season home games will be at Thunderbird park.

The NAIA West tournament will not be rotating between the North and South division pennant-winners, as previously planned; the tournament host will be the highest-rated team instead. Also, the special arrangement that put Cal State San Marcos in the NAIA West tournament is no longer in place.

Noteworthy disappearances from the roster are Scott Webster and Jordan Padrinao (although Padrinao has never actually been on the roster). Ashton Florko isn't there, either, but he may be re-instated before the season starts.

The roster also reveals that Connor Janes is now a full-fledged assistant coach.

T-Birds Baseball 2010: Numbers and Young Talent Create Depth

"The more the merrier" was the mantra for the T-Birds this fall, as a total of 46 players reported to the 2009 fall training camp. With so many players at their disposal this season, the coaching staff has all their bases covered.

"Depth should not be an issue for us," said Assistant Coach Cav Whitely. "At the end of the day, no matter what, we'll always have a guy who can step in for us without much of a talent drop on the field."

This will be vital for the T-Birds, who suffered through injuries to various key players over the course of last season and lost an unusual number to academic ineligibility as well. To help counter the latter problem this season, the coaching staff has hired an academic specialist. While there isn't much that can be done to prevent the bad luck of injuries, the depth of 46 players will help to mitigate the consequences.

"The beauty of having this many guys is that we can go on when someone gets hurt," said Whitely. "They can spend proper time in physio; they won't have to play through it, and they can get healthy before they get back on the field."

Thunderbird RHP Shawn Hetherington was selected as the first team relief pitcher for the 2009 All-Canadian team selected by the Canadian Baseball Network.

LHP Mark Hardy was selected to the second team. Several more Thunderbirds got honourable mentions.

Complete details on the All-Canadian team can be found here.

The Old Alumni trailed 7-3 going into the bottom of the ninth, but former pro (Mets organization) Derran Watts came home on a wild pitch to give the Old Alumni their fifth straight win in this annual matchup. Shawn Anderson gets credit for the winning RBI, and Mike Lazaruk, who pitched the last two innings, got the win.

Tyler Willson hit a ball that hit the top of the outfield fence for a two-RBI double for the Young Alumni.

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