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Baseball team finds bright spots in losses
By Drew Herron/Contributing Writer
The Husky baseball team returned home after a difficult Texas trip with reasons for optimism, despite a trip record of 1-7. Their lone victory came in a 6-4 win over defending national champion St. Mary's. The team's offensive production, which had been an area of concern, has been solid, and four of the seven losses were by two or fewer runs.
Three of the Huskies' seven losses were to 2001 Heartland Conference Champion, Incarnate Word. After losing the first two games March 11 by a combined three runs, the Crusaders proved to have too much depth for the Huskies in the third game. Keeping it close until the bottom of the fourth, Incarnate Word overwhelmed the Huskies in the late innings on their way to a 24-9 victory. After falling twice to Texas A&M Kingsville, the Huskies played three hard-fought games against St. Mary's University, in which they lost two, but earned their only victory of the trip.
The Huskies hit comparably to their opponents, but the hits never seemed to come when the team most needed them.
"We've got to start getting hits at the right time," said assistant coach Shane Quesnell. "When runners are in scoring position, we need to come up with a key hit and that's one thing we didn't do."
The Huskies started slow defensively, but started to gel towards the end of the trip.
"I expected we'd play good defense and we didn't," Lorsung said. "But at the end of the trip we really started playing good defense. The last game we played we turned four double plays." Holding runners on and positioning for each batter improved as the trip went on, but were areas that the Husky infield overlooked early. Injuries also plagued the Huskies. "We were pretty banged up," Lorsung said. "Not that that's an excuse, but it's a fact."
Power at the plate has been a welcome surprise for the Huskies at this early point of the season. The school record of 52 homeruns set in 1998 stands in jeopardy after Husky bats have sent 12 deep so far this season.
"Home runs just happen," Lorsung said. "We're not a home run hitting team. I didn't expect to have 12 home runs, but that's great." Senior Mark Dingman leads the team with three home runs and three players, Mike Holman, Andy Gretz, and Parnell O'Connor each have a pair. "Guys are up there swinging the bats and just happen to connect," Lorsung said. "That's how we want them to hit."
Andy Gretz is off to a hot start hitting .406 and leads the team in slugging percentage (.812) and RBIs with eight. Sophomore Parnell O'Connor leads the team in hitting with a .417 batting average while driving in five runs. Half of O'Connor's 10 hits are for extra bases. Senior co-captain Mike Holman is also off to a solid start.
Holman has started all of the Huskies' 10 games and is hitting .333 with two home runs and six RBIs. Lorsung is pleased with Holman's consistency. "Mike's not getting three hits a game like Gretz, but he'll get a hit just about every game."
Injuries provided an opportunity to play for freshman Will Spencer, who has surprised the coaches with his performance on the trip.
"Spencer came up and hit well for us," Lorsung said. "It was kind of a surprise because he wasn't even supposed to make the trip, but Will came in and hit .333 for us."
O'Connor may have been the most pleasant surprise of the trip. "We thought he was a good hitter," Lorsung said. "We didn't know how good he was going to be, but he stepped up and hit the ball with some power." In addition to O'Connor's team leading batting average, he also has three doubles and leads the team in on-base percentage with .481.
The Huskies will have a few weeks off to work out the kinks. "We need to get back downstairs and work on our hitting," Lorsung said. "We swung at some bad pitches, and took too many." Consistency throughout the lineup will need to be improved. Three senior starters are hitting below .170. "The good thing about having a break between games is it gives you time to work on things," Lorsung said. The Huskies will stick to the basics and fundamentals as they prepare for the next double header against Winona State Tuesday. "We're going to do the same things as we've always done," Lorsung said. "We'll work on our hitting, we'll work on our defense, and we'll work on our pitching."
The extended break between games gives the Huskies a much-needed chance to get healthy. "This two-week rest period was really a savior for us," Quesnell said. "We got a lot of guys with pulled muscles and stuff like that, but we should be good to go."
Pitching will need to be more reliable than it was in Texas. Pitching ahead in the count and location are the two areas that need the most improvement. "Not only were we missing our locations, but we were missing the strike zone," Lorsung said. "When you're throwing from behind 2-0, and missing your spots, you're going to get beat up. And that's what happened." Starting longevity has also been a problem for the Husky starters. "They'll definitely have to work on getting more innings themselves and taking control of the game and work into the sixth or seventh inning," Quesnell said. "That's what we need to get out of them."
The Husky pitchers return with inflated earned run averages but Lorsung feels that's an area that will take care of itself as long as the defense is consistent. Sophomore Blayne Penney was impressive in the victory over St. Mary's. "He pitched a great game," Lorsung said. "He pitched very, very well." Another bright spot was the performance of junior Reggie Litke. "Litke was a tremendous positive for us in relief," Lorsung said. "He didn't give up an earned run, and saved a game for us by picking off a guy with the bases loaded."
The next opportunity for the Huskies to right the ship will be Tuesday when they travel to Winona for a doubleheader. Lorsung feels the difficult trip to Texas generated more positives than negatives. "I don't think there's any doubt that we're better prepared now," Lorsung said. "The experience of playing on better fields and against better competition overshadows the fact that we might lose some games."
A 1-7 record looks discouraging on paper but the level of competition facing the Huskies now won't be as difficult. The teams in Texas have already played 20 or more games each. NCC rival Mankato State also made the trip to Texas and suffered a similar fate. "Assuming that Mankato is the best team in our league, at least by tradition," Lorsung said, "they went down there and got smoked, just like we did." Playing close games with defending National Champion St. Mary's gives the Huskies experience and confidence that will carry over to the NCC schedule.
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