After going .500 over spring break and dropping from 20th to 30th ranked, the baseball team came back with an 8-2 win over McKendree University on Wednesday.
Sophomore Bronson Smith closed the game, and head coach Patrick McGaha said Smith’s starting pitching had been strong throughout spring break.
“I was very pleased with our starting pitchers over break,” McGaha said. “Both Bronson and Alex Smith had really good starts.”
The team won four of the eight games over the break, and now has a record of 17-6. McGaha said that the team’s biggest struggles were closing pitching and defense. However, strong hitting helped the Bisons out and McGaha said he is happy with the series they won.
“Anytime you can win a series you have to be pretty pleased with that,” McGaha said. “Winning against Quincy was a good series win, and we won against Arkansas-Monticello. That’s winning two series and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
The team split its series with University of North Alabama 2-2.
Both McGaha and pitcher freshman Josh Spears said that the team’s hitting has been what kept them afloat.
“The bats, the hitters came on strong,” Spears said. “The games we lost over break were games that we had the aptitude to win. We were in them and competitive.”
With some strong points in both pitching and hitting, Spears said he blames the losses on everything not coming together in some of the games.
“Coach [McGaha] always tells us to work on all three phases of the game together: hitting, pitching and defense, ” Spears said. “The three phases weren’t unified, we weren’t together in some games. If we can get it all working together at the same time, we’d be a phenomenal team.”
One of the team’s newest members, center fielder junior Kyle Atkins, has been an outstanding base runner for the team, McGaha said.
“Kyle’s speed really changes the game,” McGaha said. “He has 17 stolen bases already, and we haven’t had a really fast guy like this for awhile.”
Sophomore infielder Matt Calhoun was named GAC hitter of the week, and currently sits as the Bisons’ No. 2 hitter with a .338 batting average and 24 hits.
Spears even pointed Calhoun out as one of the team’s strongest players this year.
“Calhoun is just hitting the ball really well,” Spears said.
The Bisons will face East Central University this weekend in a doubleheader on Saturday starting at noon and a game on Sunday at 1 p.m.
“East Central hasn’t been very strong in past years, but they’ve played some strong programs and beat them this season, so they will bill tough to beat like every team in this conference,” McGaha said.
