Aggie baseball goes 1-2 in home-opener series
The Aggies’ baseball team lost its season home opener 14-11 to Colorado Mesa on Friday night at the Richard V. Hansen ballpark in Smithfield.
The Colorado Mesa Mavericks won the series 2-1 but coaches and players from the team are very confident in the season that lies ahead of them.
“It’s difficult, it definitely takes it out of you a little bit, but we’ll come back,” said head coach Brad Singer of the first home loss of the season. “We’re not worried one bit.”
The first game of the three-game series was dominated by the Mavericks until USU made a comeback in the last two innings to tie it at nine. But Colorado Mesa pulled out the win in the end and defeated the Aggies by three runs.
“We’re a better team than the scoreboard says,” said senior MJ Tineo after Friday’s game. “They shouldn’t have scored 14 runs against us. We should just carry that momentum from the end of the game with us to tomorrow’s game.”
Singer was also hopeful about taking that momentum that led the team to score 11 points at the end of the game into the next day’s double-header. His team won the first game on Saturday 8-4 but fell to the Mavs in the second game 15-14, giving Colorado Mesa the win for this series.
“Our bats were hot again today like last night,” Singer said. “We need to regroup our pitching staff and make adjustments moving forward.”
This past weekend’s series showcased the strengths of the Utah State baseball club at the plate. Senior MJ Tineo and his teammates Eric Stranski, Michael Kress and Lantzen Toomer were crucial to the team with their offensive performance, said Singer.
In their past four games, the Aggies have scored 50 runs but have won only one.
“We are a pretty good hitting team,” Tineo said. “I don’t see a hole in our lineup. But I would say our pitching is struggling a little bit.”
Colton Draney was the only pitcher this past weekend that had a win for the Aggies. Coach Singer said that Draney had a rough start but settled down after a few innings.
“We’re not playing to our potential on the defensive side, we have a week off before conference starts that’ll give us time to make the necessary adjustments,” Singer said.
Looking into the rest of the season, Utah State will start conference play on April 9. There are 13 pitchers on the roster and Singer plans on working with them on getting good starts in the games defensively.
Boise State is predicted to be the Aggies’ toughest opponent coming up in three weeks.
“We beat them in regionals last year but they are a really good and competitive squad,” said Tineo. “I’m excited to play them this year.”
Tineo, who had consistently powerful offensive performances over the weekend, is the only senior on the roster this year for Utah State and hopes to bring confidence to the younger men on the team.
“I’m pretty confident about this team this year,” Tineo said, describing his vision of the team making it to Nationals later this spring.
The Aggies will start conference play at Montana State on the 9th and 10th of April. Their next home series will be the 15th and 16th against Boise State.
“I would like people to come and support us,” Tineo said of the small fan base that travels to Smithfield for the games each week. “We’re going to give them some good entertainment this year. We’re a pretty good team.”
— paige.a.cavaness@aggiemail.usu.edu
Twitter: @ususportspaige