{"id":16515,"date":"2021-11-04T14:54:02","date_gmt":"2021-11-04T20:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=16515"},"modified":"2022-01-11T14:54:44","modified_gmt":"2022-01-11T20:54:44","slug":"baseball-team-closes-out-the-off-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2021\/11\/04\/baseball-team-closes-out-the-off-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Baseball team closes out the off-season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by Cianna Jay<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Harding baseball team ended their off-season with the final two scrimmages of the Black and Gold series on Oct. 23 and 24. Black team won the series, beating Gold 4-1 overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Head baseball coach Dr. Patrick McGaha said the scrimmages helped the players prepare to compete against other teams, which was especially important for the freshmen on the team. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[The freshmen] have not played at this level of competition yet, and the difference is really being able to compete and stay focused and being able to play scrimmages allowed those guys to learn how to do that,\u201d McGaha said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Junior first baseman Coulton Doyle said the scrimmages prepared them by providing a game-like experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe cool thing about the Black and Gold [series] is that there\u2019s a lot of hype building up to it and within it, and so the guys really wanted to win, and every game was treated like a serious one we might have in the spring,\u201d Doyle said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team has undergone some changes with the recent graduation of several players. McGaha said it was important for the new replacement players to integrate into the team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe graduated a lot of guys last year that have been integral parts of our program, so we\u2019re not necessarily young, but we do have a lot of new faces,\u201d McGaha said. \u201cAnd so this fall, it was important to try and really mesh together and kind of come together as a family and be able to integrate these new guys into our returning group, and I think we\u2019ve really done a good job of that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the spring, the Harding baseball team will kick off the season with a three-game invitational tournament in Hot Springs, Arkansas, from Feb. 4-6. McGaha said this tournament will be a good opportunity for playing skilled teams they usually don\u2019t get to compete against. The team will begin the Great American Conference (GAC) on Feb. 18 against East Central University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McGaha said while the GAC will be competitive, he feels good about the team\u2019s offensive and defensive skills. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel like we\u2019re going to put a really good defense on the field, as we usually do,\u201d McGaha said. \u201cAnd this fall we showed a lot of offensive power. We really hit the ball well \u2026 and scored a lot of runs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doyle also said he feels good about the spring season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI do think, from what I\u2019ve seen from Black and Gold, our hitting is very, very good,\u201d Doyle said \u201cAnd so I think we\u2019re really going to be able to compete with big power teams.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

McGaha said good pitching is something the team will need to work on for the spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just going to need to have some guys step up and pitch well for us on the mound,\u201d McGaha said. \u201cThe potential\u2019s definitely there. We\u2019re just going to have to have some guys that haven\u2019t had to step up and be the leaders kind of do that now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sophomore infielder and pitcher Sawyer Price said he\u2019s excited for the season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel that we have a lot of talent,\u201d Price said. \u201cAlmost so much to where we don\u2019t know what to do with everybody right now, so I\u2019m looking forward to seeing where we move guys, what pieces fit where, and most importantly I\u2019m excited to go win games in the spring.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the full practice window for fall now completed, McGaha said he feels it has been a good fall and that the Black and Gold scrimmages ended the off-season well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cWe always finish the fall with Black and Gold intrasquad World Series, and it\u2019s always a good way to end,\u201d McGaha said. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of, you know, camaraderie building and you have the guys really get excited about playing against each other, and so [the scrimmages] went really well \u2026We had a really good fall and being able to end playing games against each other is always fun.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Harding baseball team ended their off-season with the final two scrimmages of the Black and Gold series on Oct. 23 and 24. Black team won the series, beating Gold 4-1 overall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15199,"featured_media":16516,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16515"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16517,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16515\/revisions\/16517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}