Entry #42 - 03/15/05

March 15, 2005

I always look forward to the first road trip of the year. There is just something special about getting on the bus to go play ball at a new destination. Besides taking care of all of the meticulous details which come with your travel plans, it is actually nice when you play on the road because basically all you have to do is sleep, eat and show up to play. There are no distractions, no field work, or no phone calls to deal with; all you have to worry about is just getting ready for baseball.

Friday night was a miserable night for baseball. Usually when you travel south to play, the weather warms up, but not on this night in Greenville, South Carolina. The wind was blowing at least 20mph all night long and the temperature never got up above 40 degrees. Very tough conditions. When it is cold like this I always preach to our guys to “never let anything without a heart beat you”. We can’t control the weather, so we have to make the best of it. Complaining about it does not do any good. So far this year we have been a pretty good cold weather team, but since this was our first game away from Cardinal Park I was not sure how we would respond.

Furman has a very nice college baseball facility and from a spectator’s standpoint it seems like a great place to watch a game because you are very close to the field. In going over our scouting report and trying to prepare our club for what to expect; I thought I had covered everything but as the game began I realized I had overlooked the part on how to handle the home team’s unruly fans. In the past at Furman it had not ever been a factor before, but when Ron Smith (Furman’s head coach) warned myself and the umpires during our ground rule’s meeting before the first game, that there are going to be some fans who like to “heckle” and yell at the opposing team and umpires, I knew I had missed something.

On Friday night, considering the weather conditions there was a nice crowd at the park. I was really pleased with all of the ETSU fans which made the trip. Anyway, on the Furman side they have a few students and some parents who really like to get on the opposing team and umpires. It is all in good fun and stuff like this is what makes playing on the road fun and tough at the same time. But these “hecklers” were pretty good and I was not sure how are guys would respond. All games in the Southern Conference have a very intense atmosphere and when the crowd is into it, it just fuels the fire.

We couldn’t start off the weekend in a much better fashion as Nick Crowe led off the game with a homerun and then Shane Byrne immediately followed with a blast of his own. Jeremy Hall was on the mound for us and once again he gave us a great performance leaving the game with one out in the eighth inning and a 10-4 lead. Furman would score four runs off our bullpen in the last two frames, but we held on for the victory. Nick had four hits on the night, while Chuck Hargis continued his “hot” play as he went 3 for 3. Shane, Caleb Moore and Anthony Russell also collected two hits apiece. Friday night was Anthony’s first start of his career at 3rd base and he didn’t disappoint. A.R. doesn’t carry himself on the field like a freshman and it was nice to see him launch his first career homerun deep to centerfield to help break open the ball game. It was nice to get that first win of the weekend. Dinner sure taste a lot better after a win.

On Saturday, Mother Nature was very kind as she blessed us with temperatures in the sixties and gave us a beautiful day for baseball. Once again Nick got us going in the first as he led off the game with another homerun. This was the third time this year he has done that. Shane followed Nick with a base hit and came around to score to give us a 2-0 lead. Furman has a disciplined offensive team and it showed on Saturday as they roughed up our pitchers and had a 7-3 lead after four innings. We finally got our bats going and in the next two frames we scored nine runs to take a 15-8 lead. We had nine outs to get and a seven run lead and I felt like we were in pretty good shape, but it was a crazy day of baseball. We immediately walked the bases loaded and sure enough Furman capitalized cutting into our lead. We had to bring in our closer, Caleb Moore with two outs in the eighth and he held our lead. We finally got the final out of the game with the tying run on 3rd base. I never thought this game was going to end. I thought we did some great things offensively during this night, but we didn’t pitch it very well and our defense was very shaky. We were very fortunate to win. If you would have told me that we were going to give up twenty hits, commit three errors and our hitters were going to strike out twelve times and still win, I would have never believed you.

I have always tried to emphasize to our guys that Sundays are always the most important day of a three game series. On Sunday you can find yourself in three different scenarios. You can be 0-2 and fighting for your life to salvage a win. You can be 1-1 and fighting to win the series. Or you can be 2-0 and looking for the sweep. Hopefully you find yourself in the 2-0 situation and if you are fortunate enough to be in this situation, then you have to take advantage of it because it doesn’t happen very often. By winning that third game you can gain three games on a team, where if you go two and one you only pick up one game on your opponent.

On this Sunday it just wasn’t meant to be for us as we had some tough breaks and we could not seem to overcome them. In the first inning we hit into a triple play and from that point on it was a struggle for our club to get anything going. Looking back on the series I actually thought we played our most complete game of the weekend on Sunday, but Furman was able to get the timely hits and we missed on some opportunities. Baseball is such a unique game. It is never the same. On Saturday the game was a marathon and neither team could get each other out and on Sunday it was the exact opposite. You just never know what is going to happen and you have to be able to handle each situation as it takes place.

For the weekend we had some guys play very well. I can’t imagine two middle infielders having a better weekend than Chuck and Nick. Combined they went 14 for 27 (.518), with nine runs scored, three homeruns and five RBI’s. They also turned six double plays. Anthony Russell played very well in his first action in the Southern Conference, as did Stephen Douglas and Shane Byrne. Shane hit .357 (5 for 14) for the weekend, but very easily could have had at least five more hits as he hit the ball hard all weekend long.

So now we face a very challenging part of our schedule. The month of March is going to be a difficult test for our ball club. I know I am really looking forward to this stretch of games. College baseball gets better and better and more competitive every year. The Southern Conference is a great example of how teams have improved because on any given weekend anything can happen. As a coach sometimes you catch yourself looking at your schedule and thinking, this is a game/series we should win. But the way things are now is that every team we play is good and we must play well to win. It is as simple as that. The teams on our schedule are not going to give us victories. We are going to have to earn them with good play. So as I look at our upcoming schedule it won’t do me any good to worry about our opponents. My only concern is the quality of our play and how we approach and respond to the various situations we will encounter. I know our players are excited about what lies ahead. I hope they are up to the challenge. Until next time...

Coach Skole