Published: May 14, 2008 11:48 pm            

Times, they sure have changed

Once fighting just to get to postseason, Bearkat baseball has higher expectations

Casey Springer remembers the sheer elation that overcame him the second the Bearkats won the Southland Conference Baseball Tournament last spring. He also recalls the utter embarrassment of the season-ending sweep Sam Houston State suffered through back in 2006.

The team that swept the Bearkats — archrival Stephen F. Austin — was a start-up program, a school playing baseball for the first time in 10 years.

That seems like such a long time ago, but Springer says ugly memories stay with ballplayers just like memories of “magical” rides to the NCAA regionals, where the feisty Bearkats advanced all the way to the championship round in 2007.

Oh, how far the Bearkats have come in the last two seasons. A team that was just trying to squeak into the Southland tournament now expects to reach that level every season.

“Making the tournament, that’s our lowest expectation. We’re not playing and competing in games just to get into the tournament now,” said Springer, who has been on the Bearkat baseball roller coaster since 2003. “We’re playing and competing in games to become champions — Southland Conference champions, regional champions, whatever.

“I knew when coach (Mark) Johnson took over, this program would become something special. With his knowledge, his know-how, the atmosphere he creates, things were going to turn around here. But I’m surprised it happened this quickly. Surprised would be an understatement, actually.”

The Bearkats (16-11 in SLC play, 31-22 overall) have already wrapped up a spot in the eight-team Southland Conference Tournament field. Without any kind of celebration, Johnson’s team did that a couple of weeks ago.

Tournament play gets under way next week at Don Sanders Stadium in Huntsville. Before they throw out the first postseason pitch, the Bearkats have some unfinished business to take care of starting tonight at 6:30.

The Lumberjacks (11-15 in SLC, 24-27) come back to Huntsville for the first time since 2006, and the Kats have a few plans for the final three-game series of the season.

“Our rivals, SFA, are coming into our park,” senior outfielder Ryan Trevino said. “We can’t let them push us around. We’ve got to jump on them early and stay on them.”

“Yeah,” Springer added, “and we also need to build some momentum for the tournament.”

The mastermind of the Bearkats’ quick turnaround, Johnson says he would like to see his team give three more strong performances before the Southland’s top squads come to Sanders Stadium for a double-elimination tournament.

“We just want to play good baseball. We want to gain some momentum going into the tournament,” the Bearkats’ boss said. “For pride’s sake, you’d like to be in the number two or three hole. That’s better than being eighth or ninth for sure, but sometimes you wish for that and then you get somebody’s ace pitcher in the eight hole.

“We’re not in a must-win situation, but we’ll be pushing hard to win simply because we always want to play good baseball. ... We also want to get our pitchers going. We don’t want to get too hung up in the (tournament) seeding because you can sure play yourself into a tough game.”

Johnson said the Bearkats will send freshman Dallas Gallant (6-3, 5.88 ERA) to the mound tonight. The rookie right-hander from Trinity High School has been one of the team’s most reliable starters.

On Friday, junior Guillaume Duguay (3-1, 3.12) is scheduled to start. Freshman Zach Neal (3-2, 5.97) will pitch Saturday’s regular-season finale.

Johnson said he’s feeling pretty good about the Bearkats, especially considering how young they are, as they head toward next week’s tournament.

“We’re hitting the ball well, we’re fielding at over a .960 average and those are two things you’ve got to do to be a champion at this level,” the coach said. “I’m certainly not disappointed. We’ve had a lot of young guys playing, especially on the mound.

“We graduated 12 seniors, and most of those guys were pretty important to our team last year. We’ve got three new guys in the infield, plus we lost two of our legitimate weekend pitchers (Jacob Howard and Ryan Tepera) to injuries.”

Howard and Tepera may both be ready to pitch next week, according to Johnson. Howard, the Bearkats’ ace coming into the ’08 season, has been nursing a shoulder injury for the past two months, and Tepera is on crutches due to a staph infection in his foot.

“Howard is starting to throw again,” Johnson said. “He’s got some bone chips in his elbow that have to come out this summer. But he’s had a lot of rest and a lot of rehab on his labrum.

“Tepera still has packing on the ball of his foot, so he can’t put a lot of weight on that. He won’t be ready this weekend, but the doctor said he may be able to go in the tournament.”

        

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