Article

Baseball Wins Pair in Georgia Openers
Mavericks go 2-3 in first action of season at West Georgia.

by Garret Felder
March 07, 2006

Starting the season for a college baseball team in Minnesota is like pulling a sports car out of storage: When it first starts ups, it sounds terrible, but after running for a while, it purrs like a kitten.

As Minnesota State baseball started the season winning only two of five games against West Georgia March 2-4, the veteran squad understands that getting the rust out early can turn a team into a conference champion.

“It is good to get the cobwebs out, especially when we have been practicing since Jan. 16,” said MSU head coach Dean Bowyer. “It’s nice to know what we have to work on early in the season and any games we win is just frosting on the cake.”

After losing both games of Thursday’s doubleheader (1-0, 9-3), winning both games Friday (12-7, 4-3), and losing 13-6 Saturday, the Mavericks realize their defense needs to perform much better than the .932 fielding percentage they displayed in Carollton, Georgia.

“We had too many errors on defense,” Bowyer said. “We especially didn’t play well defensively on Saturday. But we’ll work hard on “D” and try to get some live ground balls outside.”

Defense wasn’t the Mavericks’ only problem. Although the Mavericks hit well during the five-game series, the squad had a problem with discipline at the plate.

“We hit the ball pretty well but we struck out 29 times in five games and only had 13 walks,” Bowyer said. “This is not unusual at first, but we swung at bad pitches and we need to let the ball get deep in the zone and stroke it the other way.”

While the Mavericks have practiced inside Myers Field house for the last six weeks, Bowyer admits there are some major differences between practicing inside and a team’s first outdoor game.

“The game slows down outside and with our hitting, we have got to slow down for playing outside,” Bowyer said. “With the wind, the sun and the blue sky [the switch to outside] is tough. But the more you do it, the more confidence you have.”

Although the Mavericks had some trouble with their first games outside, the coaches saw some good things out of their team, including a 5-for-11 hitting performance out of junior second basemen Nick Gonzalez. The coaches expect Gonzalez to be able to move players around the base paths, Bowyer said, and get on base by any means necessary for the team.

“[Gonzalez] has experience, he’s really tough on himself and he wants to be a contributor,” Bowyer said. “We expect him to be able to bunt, hit-and-run and sacrifice himself for the team. He doesn’t have to drive [runs] in, he just has to set the table.”

The Mavericks hope to improve their defense and discipline at the plate this week before their doubleheader with Concordia-St. Paul Thursday at the Metrodome.