The Oakland University baseball team gathered with family and alumni Jan. 17, at the Royal Park Hotel for the 10th annual First Pitch Banquet. The team kicks off their season with the fundraiser to both celebrate last year’s team and introduce the Golden Grizzlies of 2015.

“This event is a celebration of people,” Head Coach Musachio said.  “It’s to honor the people who have worked so hard to build this program and represent this university in a first class manner.”

The evening is filled with a variety of individual awards earned by the players during the 2014 season. Some noteworthy awards include offensive player of the year, earned by senior Robby Enslen and defensive player of the year, earned by junior Mike Brosseau. Trent Drumheller received the the Ryan Kennedy excellence award, described by Musachio as the most prestigious award given at this event. This award is given to the Golden Grizzly that shows overall excellence as a person throughout the year.

These players are expected to do big things again this year. On top of being named offensive player of last season, Robby Enslen was voted preseason player of the 2015 season. Last year, Enslen was named to the All-Mideast Region Second team as well as the All-Horizon league first team.  In addition to leading the Horizon League in batting average, he was top ten in slugging and on base percentage.

“Robby is a tremendous player. He works hard and he’s very humble,” Coach Musachio said. “Being named Preseason player of the year is something that can create a lot of pressure, but its not Robby’s style to let something like that affect him.”

Standout shortstop, Mike Brosseau, is also expected to play a big role on this year’s team. At Saturday’s banquet, Brosseau received the defensive player of the year and the hustle awards.

“He’s the best shortstop in our league,” Musachio stated. “Mike is poised to have an even better year than he did last year.”

Brosseau was also an All-Horizon League first team selection last season after ending the season hitting .322 and slugging .432.

The grizzlies are coming off a fifth place finish in the Horizon League. Coach Musachio says their 7-17 record last season does not accurately portray how close they were to being a top program in the Horizon League.  

“We had a lot of losses last year that were really daggers to the heart,” Musachio said.  The grizzlies were tied or in the lead going into the 7th inning for 18 of their losses last year.  “The hardest outs of the game are the last three. I think it became a psychological challenge for our guys once we had a few of those losses.”

The start of the year will be a challenge for the golden grizzlies right off the bat. They open their season at Florida State University, a projected College World Series favorite. It won’t get much easier the following weekend when the team leaves for a road trip to USC and Arizona.

“Pure and simple we want to play the best competition we can to prepare our men to win a horizon league championship,” explained Musachio. Their schedule is designed to challenge themselves at the beginning of the year to get ready for the ultimate goal of winning the Horizon League.

“It’s going to be a tough league, but we will be there at the end.  I guarantee you that.” Musachio said.