Madison, WI – August 27, 2008. With the Mallards 2008 season officially complete, it’s time to look back at the year that was. Beginning today and running throughout the next few months, we’re going to recap notable achievements, both personal and at the team level, while sharing some of the top moments from a season that saw the Mallards reach the Northwoods League Championship Series and set a single-season attendance record. Today’s installment dives into individual records that were broken, thanks in due part to outfielder Rob Lyerly’s (Charlotte) offensive explosion that included a NWL batting title.
Single-season records broken:
RBI’s – Rob Lyerly (48)
Lyerly, a prototypical gap-to-gap hitter, was the team’s most consistent hitter, as evident by his RBI total by month (June, 19; July, 21; August, 8). He eclipsed Bobby Hubbard’s (Furman) old mark of 46 RBI’s set just a year ago.
Doubles – Rob Lyerly (19)
Lyerly broke fan favorite Randy Molina’s (Stanford) doubles record (15) set in 2007 with a 4-hit performance on July 29th versus the Wisconsin Woodchucks that included 3 doubles.
Triples – Phil Gosselin (7)
The hardworking Gosselin coincidentally hit more triples than he did doubles (6) en route to a .270 average with 25 RBI’s. He surpassed the previous record of five triples set by Erik Johnson (UC-Irvine, 2002), Ryan Rogowski (Illinois, 2005), and Bobby Hubbard (Furman, 2007).
Career batting records broken:
Home Runs – Luke Stewart (8)
When Luke Stewart (UAB) hit a baseball right on the nose, people stopped what they were doing and took notice. Whether his home runs were majestic shots or screamers just over the wall, the only thing that matters now is that his 8 home runs broke Mike Rohde’s (Illinois) career mark of 7…and it took Rohde four years to amass that total!
Notes: Lyerly just missed Ryan Rogowski’s (Illinois) single-season batting average record (.345) with an eye-opening .342 mark. Stewart also set a single-season team record with his 73 strikeouts, surpassing Francois Larmore’s (Marshall) 62 set in 2003.
