Baseball team's confidence wavers throughout games

MU avoided another bad loss by staving off Lincoln on Wednesday.

By Lenny Goldman

Published April 4, 2008

As the wins piled high and the Tigers climbed up the rankings, reaching the No. 2 spot in the nation, confidence naturally followed suit.

That was until Texas Tech delivered a ninth inning blow last Saturday and stole a victory from Missouri.

From there, the Tigers dropped their next two games. They gave up 11 runs in the last three innings against Texas Tech on Sunday, losing the conference series, and couldn’t handle unranked Western Illinois on Tuesday.

So in less than a week, overconfidence turned into a lack thereof.

Wednesday night, MU seized its opportunity to restore confidence by beating Lincoln before heading into a conference series this weekend against Oklahoma State.

“I think it (our confidence) is a lot better right now than it was at the beginning of the game, in the middle of that game and certainly than it was last night,” coach Tim Jamieson said after the Lincoln game.

While the victory won’t have a major impact on the season as a whole, it played a significant role on the club’s mind frame.

“Our season’s going to be dictated by what we do on the weekends,” Jamieson said. “We want to be confident going into the weekend, so we’re better now than we were yesterday. The monkey on their back is a little heavier if they go into the weekend with another loss.”

While the experienced pitchers such as juniors Aaron Crow and Ian Berger, along with sophomore Kyle Gibson, carry the team through key weekend series, the team must still maintain some consistency throughout midweek.

“I’m just going out and executing pitches, working ahead, and attacking pitchers trying to get ground balls,” freshman pitcher Kelly Fick said after getting the start against Lincoln. “It’s been a big struggle the last few outings. I’m just looking to get comfortable back out there again.”

Fick pitched three innings against Lincoln, giving up two hits and no runs while striking out two, yet going into the bottom half of seventh inning the Tigers had only a one run advantage and were being out hit.

“You don’t want the team to start doubting and losing confidence, and at that point in time, I’m sure at they were a little nervous,” Jamieson said. “I think we came out and did a good job after that.”

The Tigers used their offensive firepower by scoring six runs in the eighth and the team showed some life for the first time all game.

“The energy kind of seemed kind of low all ballgame,” Fick said. “It’s been like that the few games. We got to bring the same focus and energy as we do on the weekend, no matter who we’re playing.”

Despite the team’s recent struggles, the Tigers came out of Wednesday’s matchup with momentum.

“I don’t know maybe if the ranking got to our heads or anything,” sophomore infielder Greg Folgia said, “but once we figured out that we need to stay loose and press the plate we got back in the late innings and had some good swings.”