April 8, 2008
Be Ready to Play Each Game

Just when we thought we were going to dominate the conference, the trip down to North Carolina A&T told us that we still had some skills to sharpen up.  After getting swept for the weekend, guys were shocked.  We went down to A&T focused and prepared and did not ever think that we would get swept.  That whole weekend A&T put on a hitting clinic. They scored a total of 31 runs for the weekend. Even though I still think we have the best pitching rotation in the conference, A&T took care of business.  It seemed like every time we could get the momentum going, A&T responded with a big inning.  We know now that conference play is serious business, and we still have a chance to come out on top. After that weekend we needed to focus on our cross-town rivals Old Dominion.

Like us, ODU was coming off a weekend where they got swept.  Both teams were hungry to get back on the winning track so it was going to be a competitive game.  The game was real tight until the sixth inning, when we put up five runs to go ahead 8-5. With that burst of energy, that gave us an enormous amount of confidence because we were about to take out one of the top teams in the country.  Sure enough, we held it down for the remainder of the game with a final score of 10-5.  Everyone did their part in this win. When we needed a hit or a crucial stop on defense, it was made. This is what you have to do against great teams like ODU, make the routine plays and not give them extra outs.  That game we did really well on defense because ODU put a lot of balls in play.

With the win over ODU, the momentum booster brought us to a weekend series with Coppin State.  Being swept by A&T made us even hungrier to go and grab three wins to get back at .500 in the conference.  The first game was real competitive.  Coppin State came ready to play; they were making some great plays and hitting the ball when they needed to.  That made us dig deeper because we actually had to compete to get this win.  In the end we pulled off that victory with a score of 5-4.  The second game we knew that we could not go out and go through the motions or we could get beat.  That game we came out as if it was ODU we were playing and made it easy on ourselves by winning with a score of 10-0. That weekend we swept Coppin State to get us back even in the conference.  Coppin State came down and played some competitive baseball that weekend.  We know now not to underestimate the teams that we think might be weaker because they can easily take a win from you if you come not to play. 

Jerrod Farley