JOSE TORRES
Staff Writer
If you watch Pepperdine’s baseball team long enough, you get the feeling that something special is happening. There is even a sense of confidence in players not seen in previous years.
“I want to go to Omaha,” said Centerfielder Adrian Ortiz. “I want to go to the College World Series. I think we have a shot. I think we’re really good. I think if we come together and we play good baseball, come regional’s, come postseason, we are going to have a really good chance to go to Omaha.”
Catcher Trent Diedrich agrees.
“If we play like the team we are, nobody will beat us.”
Ranked No. 12 in the USA Today/ESPN Coaches Poll and No. 13 by Baseball America, Pepperdine (30-12) will face San Diego, Cal State Fullerton, UCLA, Gonzaga, UC Irvine and Portland to finish their season—a total of 12 games.
Of the teams Pepperdine is matched against, Cal State Fullerton, San Diego and UC Irvine are ranked among the top 25 teams in the USA Today/ESPN Coaches Poll.
None of those teams, however, are seeded higher than Pepperdine. But the men’s baseball team will be looking to avenge previous losses to Cal State Fullerton and UCLA in its upcoming schedule.
At the beginning of the season, Pepperdine’s play had earned it early success. However, the team’s recent play has cost it games against Long Beach State, San Francisco and UCLA.
“We started out playing really well, like the first twenty-five games, and then we hit some speed bumps the last couple of weeks,” said Diedrich. “But that’s going to happen with any team. We just got to bounce back from it and all that’s going to do is make us stronger and better.”
The speed bumps Pepperdine faces are ones Coach Steve Rodriquez hopes his team will avoid in the future by playing better baseball.
“The biggest thing is that I want them to learn how to play the game properly,” said Rodriquez. “[To] grow in the game of baseball is the biggest thing because once they do that it’s small little mistakes that they’re making now that cost them the game [that] will not cost them games in the future.”
The players on the team are even first to admit that there is always a need for improvement in their game.
“So far this season our team has done fairly well, but we can still do better,” said first baseman Ryan Heroy. “I feel our greatest asset is our team’s unity and if we continue to play good baseball we will go far.”
Through team unity, the players never let individual egos prevent them from winning games. Some are even quick to say that the team’s success is a result of “team” baseball rather than individual performances.
“I think everybody has kind of [stepped up] in some capacity in their own special way, regardless if it’s a base hit here or a bunt there,” said Coach Rodriquez. “Whatever it is I don’t think anybody has really stepped up to where we can say that they are the savior of the team, but at the same time every person has something to say about how we’re winning.”
Winning is what Pepperdine baseball hopes to continue in order to compete in the West Coast Conference (WCC) Championship Series in May and the NCAA Tournament in June. Yet, no one on the team is looking too far ahead in their schedule.
“Any college team’s final goal is to go to Omaha,” said Diedrich. “But to do that we need to keep playing hard, to keep going out their everyday, to keep playing with this aggression that we were playing with the first twenty-five games. And hopefully we’ll finish out the season real strong, we’ll get hot going to the post season, we’ll win a regional, win a super regional, and hopefully that lead us to Omaha. That’s where we all want to end up.”
There’s no question that if the men’s baseball team maintains its work ethic, desire, and trust in one another that post season success will follow.
04-27-2007