NASHUA – Nate Goulet always likes to say that the best thing about baseball is “There’s always another game tomorrow.”

But for the Daniel Webster College team he coaches, that hasn’t always been the case.

The 6-14 Eagles have recovered somewhat in the last week from a horrid 13-game losing streak with wins over Fitchburg and Plymouth State. But it is clear that it is in a rebuilding mode, even with one of the best players in program history, senior third baseman Kyle Brigham, is in the homestretch of his career. Brigham recently became the school’s all-time leader in hits and total bases.

Goulet said the killer for the season was returning from a Florida trip and then going 12 days without playing, thanks to the cold conditions and poor field conditions.

“Baseball’s funny, it’s all about schedule and structure,” Goulet said. “You want to get yourself into some type of rhythm when Mother Nature cooperates.”

But she didn’t cooperate, and the Eagles, who used a local indoor facility to get in some semblance of routine practice, just weren’t able to find that rhythm. In fact, last week was the first time they were able to practice on their own jewel of a facility, Harvey Woods Field, and they finally played a game there last Thursday.

Former Nashua South pitcher Jared Maloney two-hit Fitchburg State over five innings, 13-3.

“I’m not making any excuses,” Goulet said. “We don’t allow excuses in this program. Is this a learning experience for me? Sure. Every day is a learning experience.

“I need to learn from this so if (bad weather) happens again next year, I’ve got to do something different.”

Goulet didn’t have to many vigorous indoor workouts during the idle stretch as he didn’t want pitchers throwing to hitters too much and causing injury. Now he feels that may have been a mistake. In the 13-game losing streak, which ended with a 7-3 win over Newbury at Franklin Pierce Univesrity’s turf field, Goulet said there was no consistency.

“We’d pitch well, but not hit,” he said. “And on the days we hit, we didn’t pitch. Some days we’d do both but our defense would hurt us.

“The one thing I told them was that you can’t dwell on the past, especially in this game. Don’t worry about how we lost or why we lost. I was as positive as I could be. The score doesn’t always indicate what happened in the game. We were in every game except two games at Mitchell.

“We’re not playing to our potential.”

Goulet has brought in some talent. For one, Dakota Williams was hitting at a .400 clip for much of the season.

“He’s swinging the bat really well,” Goulet said. So are Brigham, Dan Quinn (.345, and Dan Ierardi (.333)

The team’s earned run average is 4.69, not great but it’s not insurmountable. Lowell’s Ariel Ramos has had a tough season (1-4, 4.37 but recently got his first win and is working on better control (15 walks in 33 innings). Maloney has sported an ERA over 5.00 but he may have turned the corner. Zach Beckwith and Derek Dolan (only pitcher with two wins) have been fairly steady.

But Goulet is under no allusions.

“We’re rebuilding, we’re not reloading,” he said. “You lose 13 seniors like we did two years ago and it’s tough to recuperate from that. But what we put together for this year I really thought would contend for a conference championship. Adversity hits and it depends on how you deal with it.

“It’ll be interesting to see how we finish up the season.”

Rivier baseball

Meanwhile, for the first time in ages, the better local college team this year has been Rivier University, which made the Great Northeast Athletic Conference playoffs for the first time in eight years with an 8-6 conference mark and a fifth seed.

The Raiders almost made it past the first round, too, just being edged the other day, 1-0, by Lasell, despite a two-hitter by Sandown senior Alex Mears. Rivier was two-hit by Lasell’s Greg Sherman, the Raiders managing just two Ty Seaton singles.

Rivier volleyball

The Rivier University men’s volleyball team didn’t get the conference title or NCAA tourney berth many may have expected, but its best player, Chris Markuson, has ended his career on a high note.

He was named the GNAC Player of the Year for the second time in his now-concluded Raider career, the first time being as a freshman three years ago. This season he was third in the conference with 3.76 kills per set, hit .210, and was third in the conference in digs per set at 2.20. It was his all around game that earned him the honor.

Markuson was obviously First Team All-Conference, while sophomore teammate Tyler Blank was named to the Second Team, and freshman Grant Andler and senior Matt Tutino were Raider Third Teamers.

DWC honoree

Daniel Webster goalie Curtis Larade of Merrimack was named the NECC Player of the Week this past week, after setting a school record 32 saves in a 16-12 loss to Becker.

Through 11 games (all starts), Larade is 4-7 in goal with a .553 save percentage with 189 total stops.

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