EAU CLAIRE – The Eau Claire Immanuel Lutheran baseball team doesn’t have a conference to call its own and can’t be found in the Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association “Baseball Wisconsin 2009” Yearbook.

That hasn’t stopped the Lancers from getting out of the gates strong to start the season, one year after reaching sectionals, with a 9-1 record and the No. 9 spot in the WBCA’s Division 4 poll this week.

The biggest key, coach Joe Lau said, is the pitching of two seniors and a junior, with only one of the three having prior extended varsity experience.

“The fact that we have been pitching the ball around the plate has been the biggest key to this start,” Lau said. “They’ve pitched to contact and let the defense make the plays behind them.”

The anchor of the pitching staff is senior Tom Albrecht who returns as the ace of the staff from last season and is already off to a great start with a 4-1 record and a 1.27 ERA. He’s struck out 40 batters while walking just seven in 22 innings.

“He’s been getting varsity experience since his freshman year,” said Lau of Albrecht, who opponents are hitting an anemic .138 against. “He’s got control of his off-speed stuff. He’s developed into a pitcher not just a thrower.”

Albrecht isn’t alone, as fellow senior Andy Sydow hasn’t allowed an earned run in 13 innings yet this season and junior Luke Schaser is 2-0 with 20 strikeouts to round out the pitching staff.

The trio also populates the heart of the batting order with Sydow hitting second and catching when he’s not pitching with Schaser hitting third – he has got a .429 BA with team-highs of 15 hits and 11 RBI – while Albrecht bats clean-up.

The trio has been protected by No. 5 hitter Tom Naumann, who plays right field. He’s come on with a .478 batting average, 11 hits and eight RBI.

“He saw limited playing time last year and has been one of the surprises of the season,” Lau said. “In Saturday’s doubleheader against Spencer Albrecht walked in four of his five at-bats and Naumann went 4 for 5 on the day.”

Lau also said he sees room for improvement in the final month of the season, most notably when it comes to bringing in runners on base.

“We’ve left a lot of runners on base and it’s one of those things where I’m just waiting for it to come back and bite us,” Lau said. “In our most recent games we’ve done better in that area and we’ve got to continue that.”

The lone loss of the season, was one of those games where “everything that could go wrong did,” Lau said. The Lancers committed three errors, all of which led to runs.

It has made defense a focal point of practices as the team looks to build around its offense and pitching.

“We go over a lot of situations in practice,” said Lau of his plan to remedy the problem. “Sometimes we as coaches take for granted that the kids know what to do in certain situations.”

As the team pushes into the final month of the season, playing without a conference has the team already focused on gearing up for the postseason.

“We want to play for a high seed in regionals,” Lau said of the goals he’s set for the team during its recent time without a conference as a member of the Dairyland (a summer baseball conference) for all other sports. “If we lose during the season, but it helps us down the road, it’s a positive for us.”