The Harding baseball team warmed up its bats this weekend and played three scrimmages to lead up to the end of the official practice window for the fall.
The games were all Black and Gold scrimmages, so Harding split into two teams and one half of the Harding team played versus the other. Head baseball coach Patrick McGaha said he can already see that the team has a number of important strengths this season.
“One of our greatest strengthsis our depth — we have a number of talented young men that can contribute to this team’s success,” McGaha said.”We are a team that will be built around pitching and defense but we have a lot of team speed and good hitters that will allow us to manufacture runs and put pressure on opposing teams.”
The team began practicing this year on Sept. 17. McGaha said that so far, the team needs to work on consistency and players being able to play their hardest each game.
“We need to continue to work onour ability to compete hard every day, every game, every inning, every out, every pitch,” McGaha said. “We really need to be tough — to grind and out-work our opponents.”
Last season, the team ended with a record of 24-25, just under .500. The Bisons still have four months before the regular season starts to work out any kinks and get used to playing without last season’s seniors.
McGaha is confident though that this season’s team will bring their all to the plate each game. He said that the players are very competitive.
“I believe this group of young men have a tremendous desire to succeed and are willing to pay the price for that success in the weight room, in the batting cage and on the field,” McGaha said. “I’m not sure we had enough of that kind of desire last year.”
This season, McGaha stressed that the seniors need to be playing at the top of their games. He said, however, the whole team needs to play well for this to be a winning season.
“It takes all of our guys to be successful,” McGaha said. “I will say this though, our seniorsmust reach their potential on the field and continue to lead in a positive way if we are going to be a good club this year. We have a large group of seniors and I am counting on them to meet the expectation that lies before them.”
