When Brian Macchi ‘25 was chosen to become the new captain of Loyola’s club baseball team, he did not expect to have to explain to his team how far they would potentially be traveling this upcoming year.
“The conference that we were in before, all the teams were pretty local. The farthest we’d have to go is two hours, and that’s usually when we’d just make that a stayover for a weekend. But now the conference we’re in, it’s Virginia, Virginia Tech, James Madison, all these places are four plus hours away,” Macchi said.
As it turns out, the baseball team got lucky this year, as many of the out of state teams, with the exception of University of Virginia, are traveling up to Maryland to play the Hounds this year. But next year, the story won’t be the same. And the impact of that will be felt in the pockets of the students and the parents.
“We do get a budget. I believe it’s four thousand dollars. We were in the negative last year actually, so it’s a little less this year. A lot of the money that we get does not cover all the expenses that we need, like the umpires and the fields and all that,” Macchi said.
Tyler Zorn is the Assistant Director of Sports Programs at Loyola, overseeing all intramural and club sports. For him, Club Baseball’s schedule woes are just one piece of the puzzle.
“In that specific case with the baseball team, I just told you what the division used to be. It used to be a lot of teams that were closer. Based off of their league they got put into a different division with a lot of schools in Virginia, so it’s kind of out of their control, and they got a little bit lucky this year that a lot of the Virginia teams have to come to us, but you know next year we might have to do a lot more traveling,” Zorn said.
Because of Loyola’s smaller size, certain things are not available for all programs. For club baseball, Loyola does not have a field for them to host games. DGA is the only field for all club and intramural sports, making scheduling difficult. But Zorn says the grass isn’t always greener elsewhere.
Zorn believes that although it is tough to manage the field space Loyola currently has, the club sports program still does a great job with its available resources especially compared with similar institutions.
“Of course, having more field space would be great, but that’s not just a problem at Loyola, that’s a problem at a lot of universities, you know, space. So, I am very excited about the strategic plan and just hearing some of the ideas for the future for Loyola,” Zorn said.
But for club baseball, it may be too difficult for the team to continue in this new division. One possibility Macchi has contemplated would be to drop down to a lower level competitively, such as going into the Division 2 level.
“Yeah, I’ve definitely thrown that idea out. I mean, we don’t know who the captains are next year, who’s going to be in that position yet. So, nothing’s really concrete, but we’ve definitely thrown out the idea just in conversation, like that it’s definitely a reasonable option,” Macchi said.
For both Zorn and Macchi, club baseball means much more than just playing games on the weekends. The social side of things is just as important, with club sports becoming a place of comfort for all those involved in the team, being a home base for many.
“When we talk about retention, people want to feel a sense of belonging and just community at the school. When we talk about retention, people that come here their first year and how many people stay, I think club sports plays a huge part in that,” Zorn said.
Loyola Club Sports has an Instagram which posts constant updates. Feel free to check out all club sports opportunities at the club fair and other school events. The Loyola Club Baseball team’s first series is against Virginia Tech on the weekend of Feb. 15 and 16.
