Lafayette College’s baseball team started the season with a three-game trip to Elon University, and came back from North Carolina on the short end of a cumulative 22-2 score.
The Leopards, picked to finish sixth and last in the Patriot League, lost 9-1, 8-0 and 5-1 to Elon, which is the preseason favorite to win the Colonial Athletic Association.
The next game will be Friday at James Madison University in Virginia. The Dukes were picked to finish sixth of nine teams in the CAA.
Lafayette has a long and somewhat distinguished baseball history, but not in recent years. The last conference championship was in 2007.
Head Coach Joe Kinney is in his 20th season, with a 335-553-5 record. The last winning season was in 2008. Lafayette has not managed to win 20 games since 2009, and in 2017, needed a late surge to get to eight wins…. Eight Wins… in 52 games. That’s 8-44.
Last year, the Leopards were 16-34-1.
Baseball is a fading college sport in the Northeast and a prime candidate for the Patriot League to stop supporting. Teams that wished to continue could attempt to find partial membership in other leagues.
