A much-anticipated postseason for the baseball team turned out to be a wash this weekend, as the ECAC New England tournament was cancelled Sunday due to poor weather forecasts. The Judges had been awarded a first round bye as the No. 2 seed out of eight teams in the tournament and were scheduled to play Saturday at Keene State College in New Hampshire. That game was postponed 24-hours due to poor field conditions. In a Sunday press release, the ECAC announced that the entire tournament will not be made up.The Judges end the year with a regular season mark of 22-14-1 and no chance to act on the potential of their talented roster and high seed.

"I think everyone wanted to play and end the season on a good note," pitcher Chris McDonough '08 said. "We thought we had a good shot at winning the tournament, especially with the first round bye."

The team was coming off a 10-0 shutout loss to Wheaton College, the No. 6 team in New England, at home in their regular season finale.

Players said they were eager to rebound from that unsatisfactory ending in postseason play.

"After staying around, practicing all week, and getting ready for games, we were all excited to play," Aaron Landes '06 said. "Then all the sudden you can't, so it is pretty disappointing."

The cancellation of the ECAC tournament also was disappointing for the Judges since it deprived staff ace Tim Dunphy '06 of a shot at tying the team's single-season wins record of 11.

"We all wanted to see [Dunphy] do it," McDonough said.

Even without the record, Dunphy had an unparalleled senior season on the mound for the Judges. In the final start of his Brandeis career May 4 against Endicott College, Dunphy went the distance and tied a career high with 10 strikeouts in the Judges' 12-4 win, leading to his third UAA Pitcher of the Week award of the season. Overall, in 15 appearances for the Judges this year, he went 10-3 with a 2.35 ERA in 95 and 2/3 innings, while striking out 59 batters and walking just 20.

As the team's workhorse, Dunphy notched eight complete games in 11 starts and was instrumental in keeping an unstable bullpen from seeing too much action.

McDonough said the pitching staff will need to make some major adjustments to fill Dunphy's absence.

"It's obviously a big loss," McDonough said. "He has won the majority of our games this year, and he can pitch a lot of innings, but hopefully, someone will step up next year."

It was problems with the pitching rotation that caused the Judges to suffer a four-game losing streak that essentially took them out of contention for an NCAA tournament birth. The Judges were ranked as high as No. 7 in the New England Intercollegiate Baseball Association this season after beating No. 1 Western New England College 13-7 April 13, capping off a season-high seven-game unbeaten streak

"We are pretty disappointed," Landes said. "We've had a really rough end to the season both emotionally and physically. We thought we had a chance [to make NCAA's], and then all the sudden we found out [after the losing streak] that we didn't."

Inconsistent hitting was another problem for the team, as the Judges scored 10 or more runs 10 times on the year, but produced one run or less in seven other games.

"We have got to hit the ball a lot better against good pitching," McDonough said.

Landes and Dunphy join five other seniors on the team, whose final season at Brandeis ends with the note, "Cancelled due to weather concerns.