RUNNING INTO TROUBLE: Hun School baseball star Devan Birch shows his speed on the basepath in recent action. Hurt by some key injuries, Hun has gotten off to a slow start this spring, falling to 1-6 in the wake of a 10-4 loss to Rutgers Prep last Monday. The Raiders will look to get on the winning track when they play at Princeton Day School on April 18 and at Pennington on April 19 before hosting Mercersburg Academy (Pa.) for a doubleheader on April 21. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

For the Hun School baseball team, a couple of injuries have put a cloud over a promising spring.

The Raiders lost senior star catcher and key hitter Gavin Stupienski to a shoulder injury in the second game of the season while junior pitching ace Austin Goeke has been working through some arm problems.

As a result, Hun head coach Bill McQuade has been forced to juggle his batting order and his pitching rotation.

“When we lost Stupienski, it takes our No. 2 or 3 hitter out of the lineup and it takes a very good catcher out,” said McQuade.

“Goeke has had some arm struggles and he hasn’t pitched much for us this year so that backs everyone else up. It leaves Alex Fabian and Mike Manfredi for league games. Some kids that haven’t pitched much get other games and if they throw strikes and we catch the ball, we are fine. Sometimes we don’t throw strikes very well or catch it very well so it puts pressure on the whole team in different ways.”

Hosting powerful Germantown Academy (Pa.) last week, things didn’t go well for Hun right from the start. The Raiders fell behind 4-0 in the top of the first inning and never got closer than that on the way to suffering a 14-3 loss. “I told the guys we had to play a perfect game to beat them,” said McQuade.

“They are better than us in a few of the positions and that is OK. I just wanted to see us compete, that’s all.”

The Hun players did keep chattering in the dugout as the game went on and senior star Dave Dudeck gave his teammates something to cheer about with an RBI single in the third and a titanic homer over the left field fence in the sixth.

“Dudeck just crushes it and he has matured as a hitter,” said McQuade. “He is waiting more on the pitch so he can hit the off speed as well as the fastball.”

The Raiders will need to mature quickly if they are to get on the right track. “It is a tough start and our schedule is hard,” said McQuade, whose team lost 10-4 to Rutgers Prep last Monday in dropping to 1-6.

“We have seven games in the next week and a half and the teams we are playing are good. Our schedule is far tougher than in recent years but it doesn’t matter. I would rather play good teams and I think the kids would rather play tough teams. It starts to test them to see how much they actually love the game and how good they are compared to other teams.”

In McQuade’s view, the focus going forward is basic. “Our goal is just to get better by the end of the year, similar to last year,” said McQuade, referring to 2011 when Hun rode a late surge to state Prep A championship.

“Our pitching staff is fairly inexperienced; they have to grow so we can compete when tournament time comes around in May.”

Hun has the right mentality to keep competing hard. “I think this is a good group of kids; they play the game to win,” said McQuade, whose team plays at Princeton Day School on April 18 and at Pennington on April 19 before hosting Mercersburg Academy (Pa.) for a doubleheader on April 21.

“If the other team is better than us, so be it. We just need to have fun and compete.”