In sports like baseball, the smallest points of data can make the difference between winning and losing. While professional teams have invested millions of dollars into capturing and analyzing data, Lindenwood has taken a student-centered approach that has yielded results for the baseball team while providing real experience for students.

Lions Pitching Coach Denton McNamee arrived at the University in 2024. One of McNamee’s first objectives was to figure out a way to capture and compare data throughout the season. To get students involved, McNamee spoke to Professor of Mathematics Dr. Erin Martin. Their discussions led to the creation of the Lindenwood Performance Science Team.

Bennet Stice, a senior pitcher majoring in mathematics, became one of the early leaders of the project. Stice recalls his first semester working with the new Performance Science Team, which included the creation of a website for displaying data and a Stuff+ model. Stuff+ is a recently created statistic that seeks to quantify how hittable a pitch is. By the end of the first semester, the team was able to get a website running and develop these early models. In the team’s second semester, they were able to begin creating new research questions and find ways to make their work applicable to other sports.

The team researched pitchers’ deliveries and hitters’ swings, seeking ways to compare those to player’s strength data and workout routines. McNamee finds this player conditioning data extremely useful to better understand how player’s bodies are reacting to the rigor of a long season. Additionally, McNamee finds the video data to be essential in better understanding how to get the best out of his players. “We have every pitch that we've thrown in practice or in a scrimmage cataloged,” McNamee said. “If something goes wrong a month down the stretch, I have something to look back at.” While Stice is humble about the team’s work throughout the baseball season, he likes to give their work credit for at least two of the baseball team’s victories this year.

Stice shared his appreciation for this opportunity. “I'd just want to convey how appreciative I am for Baseball Head Coach PJ Finigan and Denton McNamee for letting me be a part of

this,” Stice said. “No DI coach in their right mind should've let a player have a ‘hobby’ like this, but I'm very thankful they've utilized me in this manner.

Apart from success on the field, the Performance Science Team is contributing to students’ professional success. For Stice, who hopes to work with a professional team, the ability to show a website that he and other students built, full of data that they collected, gives them an upper hand in the job market. This example of real experience was driven by each student’s desire to contribute to success for the Performance Science Team, Lindenwood Athletics, and their professional careers.

Although Stice has graduated and will not be involved with the team next year, he says that the project is in good hands and plans to expand to serve additional teams. Stice adds, “I want to stress how much of a team effort this endeavor has been. I've done a lot, but it's really a team effort and accomplishment.”

Stice credits the following members for their work with the team:

• Connor Marshall ’23 (BS, Computer Science)- founding member, early leader, and website developer
• Aaron Jacobson ’23 (BS, Data Science)- founding member, contributed to early Stuff+ models
• Tyler Ward ’25 (BS, Computer Science)- founding member, Rapsodo bot maker, computer vision biomechanics project lead
• Eric Hanson ’25 (BS, Computer Science)- website developer, second in command, and head of softball project
• Joaquin Fontan ’25 (BS, Data Science)- data scientist, developed an early version of readiness score, did force plate research
• Dillon Geary ’24 (BS, Computer Science)- developed early version of video cutting and processing
• Duncan Krige ’25 (BS, Mathematics and Data Science)- researched correlation between force plate data, pitch shapes, and output
• Adam Staley ’26 (BS, Mathematics)- future leader, head of men's and women's basketball project