Baseball hopes for a turnaround after rough start

The Southeast baseball team fell to the Salukis of Southern Illinois- Carbondale on Tuesday, March 6, dropping its record to 3-10 on the season.It's been a slow start for the Redhawks, who have 22 new players, including 18 junior-college transfers.

Pitching has been among the struggles.

“I thought our strength was going to be our bullpen. I like our arm talent, but we’re certainly not performing well right now,” said Sawyers, who is eager to see his new players perform at their peak. “I like our athleticism, right now we’re new, and we’re playing like it. If I could figure out how to hit fast-forward on that and grow them up faster I would, but right now were fighting it pretty good.”

On the quest for wins, Sawyers hopes that the Redhawks can perform well through their weakness, the first inning. Southeast has given up runs in the first inning in seven of its first eight home games this season and 16 first-inning runs through 13 games.

“Right now, we can’t pitch it very good in the first inning. So, I would say the first inning is weakness number one,” Sawyers said.

With hopes of turning around their record, Sawyers’ plan for the team is to come out of the first inning either tied, or winning. “We’re going to throw up a 0 in the first inning and not be behind by 3 runs when we come in to bat for the first time.”

Sophomore pitcher Matt Cook said he believes a consistent pre-game routine will eventually pay dividends for the Redhawks.

“We get out here pretty early, about three hours before the game, sometimes earlier for pre-work,” Cook said “We just get after it, put in the time and you know the results aren’t there right now, but were going to stick together and we’ll work through it. Conference play coming up this weekend, we’ll take care of it.”

Cook said it's taking time for the team to find its footing with the addition of so many new players.

“We got a good group of guys, we’re competing, we’re in the game, we’re in there. We just got to finish it off sometimes.” Cook said.

Junior right-handed pitcher and infielder Logan Winder is amongst the junior college transfers looking to make a difference in the near future.

“We’re just going to keep working. :Like coach said, “We’re going to get back to work, punch the time clock tomorrow and we just got to grind through the tough times and get back to winning baseball,” Winder said. “When we pitch it well we don’t hit it well, when we hit it well we don’t pitch it well. If we hit and pitch it well, we don’t play great defense. We’re not clicking on all cylinders yet, and I think we’re going to get there. I think we’re getting pretty close to that point.”

While Sawyers sees high hopes for the bullpen, Winder does too, but he also has hopes the bats get hot this weekend against Morehead State.

Winder believes the middle of their line up is their strength. Gagan, Ezell, Urhahn, and Nielsen. If they start hitting they’re going to be a tough team to beat.

The Redhawks look to get on track this weekend as they open up Ohio Valley Conference play against Morehead State at Capaha Field. Game times are 4 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday.