Sneak Peek: Baseball season just around the corner

A week and a half away from opening up the 2017 season in Nacogdoches, Texas, Southeast’s baseball team is training to win a fourth-straight Ohio Valley Conference championship.

With a renovated field, an upgraded scoreboard, four new coaches and more than a dozen new players added to the roster, the team’s preseason training didn’t allow for the team to miss a beat.

“We have pushed high intensity and high character from this team from day one,” head coach Andy Sawyers said. “It is clear the success this program has had within the last three or four years, we aren’t looking to fix anything when it’s not even broken.”

The 2017 roster includes 13 new members, one of whom is redshirt senior outfielder Clayton Evans.

Evans has played with different teams with differing personalities during his collegiate career as a Redhawk, but one thing hasn’t changed for the program — “We are held to a high standard and we win because of it,” Evans said with a smile on his face.

“It’s not easy at all to commit to excellence and grind every day you’re out here, but we have guys that are so focused on winning that it makes it easier.”

Evans hit .352 with 37 hits during his junior year campaign. He hit five doubles and five home runs with a slugging percentage of .514.

“I’m glad that after a couple surgeries and the whole coaching change that they’ve given me an opportunity to come back and play another year and actually reap the benefits of the guys that won championships here before us,” Evans said.

The transition in coaching staffs has been unruffled for Evans; current head coach at the University of Missouri Steve Bieser has worked thoroughly with Evans for the past four years.

“The transition with these new coaches for the most part has been smooth,” Evans said. “Now that we are at our home field practicing every day and things can move at a faster pace, they’ve been really great to work with.”

Chemistry plays a large role in the game of baseball, and even with so many new members of the 2017 team, this hasn’t been a problem.

“I think we are just guys having fun in the locker room,” Evans said. “Once you start getting everyone’s personalities to mesh and come together, you can have a lot of fun. Dan Holst and Brian Lees are our goofballs in the clubhouse; they did a good job of bringing everybody together in the fall, and by this time now we are all just friends playing ball.”

Senior outfielder Dan Holst is suiting up for his second season as a Redhawk after appearing in 59 games last season, only missing one start on the year. He led the team with a fielding percentage of .982 alongside recording 164 putouts in center field. On the base paths, Holst finished second on the team in steals behind junior second baseman Trevor Ezell and third on the team in home runs.

“Holst isn’t one of those players that’s a high profile guy, but he can really play ball,” Sawyers said. “He loves it all — he loves to hit, he loves to hunt down fly balls, he loves to run.”

Sawyers foresees Holst having another year full of playing time for his senior season, alongside senior outfielder NCBWA preseason All-American Chris Osborne. The other outfield position is currently not set in stone, “we will just see how things pan out here within the next few weeks,” Sawyers said.

On the infield, Ezell is the only one who seems to have a sedentary spot on the dirt for Sawyers. He registered 23 steals on 25 attempts during his sophomore season while sitting at third on the team in hits with 79. Ezell’s on-base percentage ranked second at .458. Last season, the Alexander, Arkansas, native broke two different records for the program: the single-season runs record with 70 and single-season at-bats with 246.

Much of this year’s defensive lineup is contingent on the offensive success of each player.

“I was told when I was a young man that if you hit, you don’t sit, and that’s just baseball,” Sawyers said.

For Ezell, personal goals haven’t been his main focus in the past, it’s always been about the big picture of making his team better.

“I just want to be the best teammate I can,” Ezell said. “Part of that is myself getting better year to year. Whatever I can do to make the team better, allows any of my personal goals to fall into place.”

Last season, Southeast’s baseball team claimed the regular-season Ohio Valley Conference title, won the OVC tournament and traveled to Starkville, Mississippi, to play in an NCAA regional playoff tournament.

“I think this team is ready to take those next steps to make it there and keep going,” Ezell said. “Our coaching staff has all been to that level before and they know what it takes to get there, so I know we are excited about that.”

Needless to say, postseason play is nothing new for Sawyers. In 18 years of coaching, he has been to two College World Series, three NCAA Super-Regionals and 10 Regional tournaments.

In preparation, the team has spent much time scrimmaging during practices to simulate game-like situations for the team.

“We’ve been fortunate enough with weather where we can get out here and let pitchers throw and let hitters see live arms,” Ezell said. “They like to make everything as game-like as they can and, as players, that’s what’s best for us right now.”

Even day-to-day batting practice is more game-like than usual because of volunteer assistant Matthew Kinney being able to throw from behind the net. Kinney was a left-handed pitcher in the OVC for three years at Belmont and then threw for Florida State during his final year. Pitching coach Curt Dixon expects big things on the mound this year for the 2017 battery. The main focus has simply been getting his pitchers back in the routine of throwing from the full distance of 60 feet.

“We are putting a lot of our attention on getting ahead in the counts with our guys right now,” Dixon said. “We want a certain command with the fastball this year.”

As for a set rotation, Dixon has an idea of what he is looking for, but nothing is set in stone yet. The team has experience on the mound with returning senior pitchers Justin Murphy, Matthew Wade, Adam Pennington, Jared Waldoff, Clay Chandler and Robert Beltran available. Beltran and Chandler saw significant time on the hill last season.

“This last week or so of throwing will be big for our rotation,” Dixon said. “It’s almost too early to make those big decisions yet.”

The team travels to play its first four games of the year in Nacogdoches, Texas, beginning Feb. 17 against UT Arlington and Stephen F. Austin. Because of the new turf field, Southeast is able to play at home during its second weekend of play against Western Illinois.

For the team to be successful on the field, Sawyers has emphasized the characteristic of being unselfish as a teammate.

“Our returners have a lot of pride in the three-straight championships and the things they’ve accomplished, and I know they don’t want to see it end on their watch. I think their work ethic and humility about themselves shows that they are very conscious of that,” Sawyers said.

QUOTES:

1 New Field:

“This turf is a really big deal this year. I know the team has had to battle weather issues with drainage and things in the past, but we haven’t missed a day because of the field. We have been able to be outside every single day and that’s a game-changer during preseason. We’ve taken batting practice in the rain, we can take ground balls when it’s wet and from a baseball coaching perspective you can do so many different things with the luxury of turf,” — head coach Andy Sawyers

“I really do just want to thank all the guys that played here before, because they’re the ones that did this for us so we could actually reap these benefits of playing on the turf.” — Senior outfielder Clayton Evans

4 New Coaches:

“Our coaches came in and were really personable, which made the transition a lot easier. They’re our coaches and we have so much respect for them, but they’re also our friends at the same time. We know that we can do to them for anything and they’re really relatable. It’s easier to play for guys like that.” — Junior second baseman Trevor Ezell

“I’ve played for three different sets of coaches in four years, and these guys that we have now are top of the line. They’ve stressed intensity and high character from day one, which transfers off of the baseball field into the rest of our lives.” — Senior outfielder Dan Holst

13 new players:

“In college baseball you cycle through a lot of guys every year, but our coaches have done a great job recruiting from junior college and high schools, which has made it easy to get on the same page so far.” — Junior second baseman Trevor Ezell

“In the fall it was tough with team chemistry a little bit more because we were having to travel to Jackon’s field and we couldn’t spend as much time hanging out in the clubhouse and things like that. But this spring has been completely different. We really are eachothers best friends at this point.” —Senior outfielder Clayton Evans