The Trinity Baseball team has finished their regular season this past Tuesday, April 22. From April 11-12 the Tigers faced off against Texas Lutheran University at home in a three-game series that they swept. On Saturday, April 11, the Tigers won 4-0. The next day, the Tigers played TLU twice and won both games 5-2 and 9-3, respectively.
The following weekend, from April 18-19, the Tigers played Centenary College away in another three-game series. However, this time the Tigers did not sweep the series and instead ended up going 2-1. The first game, the Tigers took 4-2 on Friday, April 18. On Saturday, April 19, the Tigers won the first game of the day 12-3, then lost the second game of the day 4-5.
“We played really well, but we got beat the second game on Saturday. The first game Saturday they threw a bunch of bad pitches, but they played really well the second game Saturday. They hit well and we thought we already had it won since we scored early and then cruised, but then they came back,” said senior Carter Lauck.
Last Tuesday, April 22, the Trinity baseball team wrapped up the regular season with a 6-5 loss against Mary Hardin-Baylor. Earlier this year, the Tigers beat MHB 5-4 in a 12-inning game, but this time they were not as successful. With this loss, the Tigers ended the regular season with a 30-8 record overall and a SCAC record of 16-2.
“Our game versus MHB was interesting. It was a battle; no team took too heavy of a lead, ever. Our bullpen wasn’t as dominant as it usually is, and our hitting was not as clutch as it could have been. But it still came down to bases loaded and two outs with a chance of extra innings. At that point it’s almost like a 50-50 tossup,” said sophomore Brody Fehmel.
The Tigers next play in the SCAC Championships the first weekend in May. Their first opponent is Southwestern University at home on Friday, May 2.
Heading into the postseason, the Tigers know what went wrong and have some key areas they hope to improve upon.
“We start off pretty hot and are ranked number one, then tend to make mistakes, because after we won a lot we lost five out of seven. We just get too cocky sometimes,” Lauck said.
Fehmel adds, “Some things we need to improve on are putting teams away, and by that I mean continuing to score after taking the lead. We let teams hang around in our shadows too many times. I’d say the biggest difference was attitude; we tend to get a little less fiery against certain opponents on certain games of a series, but even in the loss we had all the chances in the world to win.”
However, the Tigers are confident that if they are able to fix the issues and play to their full ability, they will be successful for the rest of the season.
“Our team is extremely confident; we truly feel that when at our best we are the best team in the country. We just need to take this next week to practice and prepare so that we play like it,” Fehmel said.
