Haverford's Tommy Bergjans Dominating In Division III

By Matt Leon

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- One of the great careers in recent local college baseball memory is winding down at Division III Haverford College on the Main Line.

Right-hander Tommy Bergjans has been a staff ace for the Fords since arriving on campus and he is capping his career in style here as a senior.

Bergjans is 5-2 this season in 8 starts. His ERA is a minuscule 0.59. In 60.2 innings of work, he has allowed just four earned runs while striking out 101 batters. The NCAA releases its statistical leaders about every week or so and the last report had Bergjans leading the nation in Division III in ERA and tied for the lead in strikeouts.

"It's been a really good time, especially this last week making it to the conference playoffs," Bergjans tells KYW Newsradio. "Every day I go out there and try and improve on something. Coming back from last year and then spending the summer in the (Cape Cod League), I just kind of learned a lot and continue to develop my game and I think that's contributed to some my success."

Listen to the entire interview with Tommy Bergjans

Bergjans is now 27-9 for his career at Haverford with a 1.60 ERA. In 276 innings of work, he has 364 strikeouts. The 27 wins, 276 innings and 364 strikeouts all represent school records.

The California native attacks hitters with three pitches: a fastball that sits upper 80's, low 90's, a curveball and a changeup. His head coach, Dave Beccaria, has enjoyed watching those pitches, and the pitcher, get better and better the last four years.

"He's a different pitcher now and he's a better pitcher now than he was when we bought him in," Beccaria tells KYW Newsradio. "When we brought him in he was a guy pitching 84-86 mph, with an outstanding breaking ball. Changeup, at that point, was a really distant third pitch. We thought he could develop into a guy who would be sort of the ace of our staff, but honestly he's even exceeded the expectations I think that we had for him. He's just become an unbelievable pitcher and it's really rare, especially for a small school like ours, to say that we might have the very best pitcher in the country at the Division III level."

Listen to the entire interview with Dave Beccaria

Beccaria talks about the overall impact Bergjans has had on the program at Haverford.

"First off, he'll be a three-time All-American this year," Beccaria says. "The things that he does on the mound are spectacular and anytime you have him on the mound you've got a really great chance to win baseball games. But aside from that, Tommy has a great effect on the other guys on the team as well. He's really confidant, but he's really humble and he's just one of the guys and has a really positive effect on what everybody else is doing. He sets a really great example because he's extremely diligent, pays great attention to detail, works harder than anybody else we have on the team. When you have somebody like that taking the ball all the time, it really sets the tone for the rest of the pitching staff. And I think our guys see what Tommy does, see how he carries himself and in some ways try to emulate some of that."

Bergjans has been a dominant force with the Fords, but as he looks ahead, he says there is room to get even better.

"Obviously, I want to improve velocity-wise, continue to try to throw harder," Bergjans says. "But I think my big want to is working on my third pitch, my changeup, try to make that a more consistent pitch for me. I think it's just not to the level of my fastball or my curveball. And to be a successful starter at the next level I think that's probably where I'm going to need to improve the most."

The next level is a real possibility as Bergjans has drawn significant attention from Major League Baseball teams in advances of June's draft.

"I'm thinking about it a decent amount," Bergjans says. "It seems like there's a good chance that I'll be able to play. A decent amount of teams have shown interest, I've talked to some scouts. But right now I'm still trying to focus on finishing up school, this is the last week of classes, only a couple more and then the conference tournament this week. And most importantly, in the end, it's really just how I do on the field. So my main focus is just continuing to get better, day by day, and putting in quality starts."

Haverford will open play in the Centennial Conference Tournament on Thursday against Johns Hopkins.

You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattleonkyw.