Winning in the home stretch
Baseball gets accustomed to winning on home turf
Nicole Holland
Issue date: 4/17/08 Section: Sports
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The Muskies have won seven of their last nine games, with a conference record of 5-4, and an overall record of 11-8.
Head coach Chris Thousand continues to keep an optimistic outlook on the season. "It's going alright. Guys are showing improvement, which helps. It, kind of, helps that we are settling into a lineup now.
"It's a lot of young guys. But we're treating this like spring training; you know where you play a lot a guys at different spots, to you see is going to fit, settling into a lineup. It seems to help guys get more consistent."
"Dave Novak was one of our top hitters going into this week," said Thousand. "Jacob Heinemeyer has been hitting the ball well; been our leadoff hitter since day one. Cal Post and Adam Brown both been doing a great job. We've had some pleasant surprises with Roberto Flores, Bryan Groshek, Ed Kozlowski, and Ryan Polizzi."
Splitting a double header with Wisconsin Lutheran was a precursor to sweeping Maranatha Baptist Bible College.
However senior third baseman and reliever, Adam Hablewitz believes the split with a school rival was vital mental push the team needed.
"Yeah we've been doing well lately. We started off pretty slow, but I think a key turning point in our season so far is when we went to Marian." Hablewitz said. "We had the lead in the game, and we kind of let it get away from us. We turned around in the second game. Getting us on the right track.
"We gave our opposition too many base runners. I think since we've been cutting down on that lately, and if we cut down on that the rest of the season it's gonna give us a better opportunity to win," said Hablewitz.
In the win against Marian, catcher Dave Novak went 1-3, with an RBI and a run scored. Senior first baseman Brown went 2-4, scoring two runs in the win against Marian.
"I think we've come a lot closer, like 'Habber' said, since the Marian game," said Brown. "Things have been clicking a little better. And we just need to keep going at that pace we are, and keep working on some things."
After sweeping Cardinal Stritch the conference match up against Dominican University Monday "ended" on a good note. Jake Van Camp got the save, as the Muskies won the first game of the day 6-3.
The second game, however, has not technically ended. The Muskies were trailing by three going into the ninth, but rallied to send the game into extra innings. As the light faded away the game was called, and the "last" inning is set to be played Sunday, when the Muskies travel to play Concordia University Chicago.
"It could take five minutes. Who knows? If someone scores in that first inning, it's over," said Thousand. "I'm just excited that we were able to come back and tie in the ninth."
Although the team has enjoyed the recent success, Brown is assured that the team is always looking toward the next win.
"Well we've been playing somewhat well the past few games. We still have stuff to work on. But now that we got those games out of the way, we have the tough part of our schedule left. We're gonna have to play a little higher type of ball."
Friday at 1 p.m. the Muskies take on Ripon at home. Aurora will be here Saturday at noon.
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