Baseball Weekend

We’re just minutes from the first pitch this weekend. It’s up to the baseball team to kick the streak of losses from earlier in the week. Softball lost. Baseball lost. Women’s basketball lost. Men’s basketball lost. And to make it even worse, all of those were very close games with losses coming in extra innings and the last second.

So, now the baseball team (3-4) is the first to head back onto the field, and they have traveled to 5-3 Nevada for the three-game series.

The Bears scored 12+ runs and coasted in two of the wins and lost two games by just a single run.

A quick look at the team:
Pitchers —
7 Bears have pitched more than three innings with only Friday’s starter, Michael Wild, reaching double figures in innings. Wild has been solid so far, and so has Bobby Pritchet who’s currently struck out 13 in only 8.2 innings. The problem with the staff isn’t allowing opponents to hit the ball – just a .266 average for opposing hitters. It’s the number of free passes courtesy of being hit by pitches. The Bears have hit 21 batters in only 7 games. Getting that under control and hoping for Reese Cross and Logan Ariola to break out of their early-season funk is going to be key.

Batters —
Leading returner, Tye Throneberry, has been in a funk of his own. He had a decent day against ORU, going 1-for-2 with a double and two sac bunts. But it looks like he’s going to be on the bench to start Friday’s game. Blake Roberts has certainly picked up the slack so far, improving on his .271 average from a year ago to sit currently at .478. Quickly making a name for himself is freshman Ethan Harris (.438 avg). He’s started every game so far (one of only two players to do that) and leads the team in hits (14), rbi (7) and is just behind Roberts in runs scored (7). Four more Bears (Fuller, Noble, Washington and Pair) are hitting over .300. And all but Roberts are newcomers to the team.

It could be a good year if some of the expected guys step up and pitch/hit like they did last year. It’s hard to gauge how good this Nevada team is or how much will learn from the series this early in the season. They have two starters with sub-.100 eras. They have four guys hitting .400 or better. But, it’s looks like if we can get to their bullpen, we might be able to do some damage.

The week that is (3.2.10)

Baseball finally takes a real road trip this week. Basketball finishes up the season. Softball plays Ole Miss and finally gets out of Mississippi. Tennis is still at home, looking for its first win against a D1 opponent.

1. Baseball - Tuesday @3 at Oral Roberts; Weekend Series at Nevada

   After picking up a series win over Saint Louis last weekend, the Bears head to Tulsa today to take on a winless ORU team. This is only the fourth game of the season for the Golden Eagles, and it will be their first home game. They were swept last weekend by Florida International, twice with late inning collapses. And when I say late, I mean 9th and 10th inning losses. They are sure to be upset about the start to their season after being picked to win the Summit League yet again. The weekend series with Nevada will get its own post later in the week.

2. Softball - Wednesday @6 at Ole Miss; Saturday and Sunday at Corpus Christi

   The softball team will play its 6th straight game in Mississippi on Wednesday night. So far, they are just 2-3 and winning against the Rebels (10-5) would be a nice one heading into the first conference weekend. Not that pre-season polls are a good judge, but Corpus was picked a couple spots ahead by the coaches and one spot behind by the SIDs. Last season the team started off SLC play with a 2-1 series win at home against UTA. Winning the opening series would be a great way to start again this year.

3. Women’s Basketball – Wednesday night @7 at SFA; Saturday @2 against McNeese

   The SBs look to bounce back after an ugly 27-point loss. Problem is that their next opponent is one game ahead of them in the East Division, so having to face SFA next will make the challenge much more difficult. The win might give the Sugar Bears a leg up in the race for the East as SFA has to play at UTSA on Saturday while 3-11 McNeese comes to Conway to close out the season. The Sugar Bears lost by 11 at home in the first matchup with SFA. That was a long time ago though.

4. Men’s Basketball – Wednesday @7 against SFA; Saturday @3 at McNeese

   If the Bears hope to get to match last year’s SLC win total of three, it’s not likely to happen until Saturday. SFA is 20-7 on the season and leads the East with a 10-4 record. The beat the Bears by 15 at their place. McNeese is one of three East Division teams sitting at 5-9 right now. The good news is that they are just 3-12 on the road. The bad news is that they also beat the Bears by 15 – on the road – earlier in the season.

5. Women’s Tennis – Saturday @10 against Sam Houston

   So far it looks like the Southland has one set of teams that are just better than the other set. Five teams are a perfect 2-0, but on the other side are four teams that are 0-2 or worse. That, of course, includes the Sugar Bears at 0-3 so far. And you guess it. Sam Houston is one of the 2-0 teams.

6. Women’s Soccer has an alumni game @3 on Saturday
7. Men’s Soccer will be in Tulsa for a 2:00 start.

The week that was (3.1.10)

The week was full of mixed results. The home schedule went 3-3 (if  tennis counts as going 0-1). The road schedule was a much worse 2-6.

1. Women’s Basketball – against Nicholls; @ SELA

   Sugar Bears cruised to an easy 83-68 win against an inferior Nicholls team with just a single SLC win. The win gave them 20 wins on the season, 10 of those coming in Southland competition. Four SBs finished in double figures in the game. Unfortunately, an abysmal shooting performance against SELA resulted in an equally abysmal 27-point loss. The SBs attempted more field goals in the game, but couldn’t get anything to drop in the second half. 18.8%? 0-7 from 3-pt range? That’s not going to win you any games, especially when you were already down by four at the half.

2. Baseball – @ UALR; Weekend series against Saint Louis

   It took a long time for to get it going on Tuesday. The ran our of outs in the 8th inning while threatening to really put the game in reach, and the result was a 5-9 loss. The Bears took advantage of great performances on the mound by Wild and Ward on Friday, coasting to a 12-5 win (three of those SLU runs were unearned). Saturday was the opposite as the Bears struggled big time on the mound and lost 13-6. They made it a 2-2 week by winning the weekend series on Sunday 6-4. Blake Roberts was absent from the lineup on Friday but continued his red-hot start to the season on Saturday and Sunday. Roberts has a hit in all five games he’s played so far, leading the team with a .556 average. More on baseball’s week in a later blog post.

3. Men’s Basketball – @ Nicholls; versus SELA

   On Wednesday, the Bears never had a shot after halftime. They went to the break down eight, but after the Colonels scored first top open the second half, the Bears never got it back down to a single-digit deficit. On Saturday, they battled to get it to overtime by working hard on the glass, but rebounds can only take you so far when you shoot 22% in overtime. How about this for a stat: Points off turnovers – SLU 25, UCA 4. Yikes.

4. Women’s Tennis – versus McNeese State

   McNeese showed that the ladies still have a long way to go, defeating the SBs 7-0. Lindsey Short was the long player to appear evenly matched with her opponent, winning the only set for the SBs.

5. Softball – @ Mississippi Valley; @ Hattiesburg Tourney

   They finished the week with a 2-3 record. Candice Gauntt had a five-hit game in the only weekend win, setting a new school record. The team has shown a lot of improvement in power at the plate. They finished with nine homers in 55 games. Only one player had two all season. Well, they already have nine through 15 games in 2010. Freshman Kelsie Armstrong has taken Holli Hill’s role as the innings-eater inside the circle. Armstrong is currently 5-4 with a 2.89 era and has thrown 53-1/3 innings.