Leading in to the 2015 season, the Lipscomb Bisons baseball team will focus on the current team and not get caught up on last season’s success.
The Bisons made it to the conference championship game in the 2014 season, only to fall short to Kennesaw State, but majority of the team returned with big ambitions for this season.
“When you have a team that ended on a little bit of success, and the majority of that team is coming back, there was a little bit of momentum that’s come from the end of last season,” Head Coach Jeff Forehand said about the end of last season.
Even though the team finished with more success than they have in past years, they are still not satisfied and want to look to go even further. Forehand mentioned one of the big differences from last year’s team and this year’s is that the 2014 team really had no expectations set for them.
“There really was no expectation [last year] because there hadn’t been anything prior to that, that we had done. I think that’s kind of a scary thing, that this year there are a few more expectations,” Forehand said. “Not that we’ve been picked to win or anything like that, but I think people have recognized how we ended and that we’re getting better, so there are some expectations this time.”
Forehand said that he wants his team to focus on the present team’s identity.
“I guess it is hard to kind of not think about last year since we did come so close, but I mean we got a whole new group of guys,” senior pitcher Nick Andros said.
The Bisons return the majority of their pitching staff this year with junior Denton Norman, senior Ian Martinez-McGraw and Andros all returning starters. The team will add to the staff with several freshman. Also, redshirt senior Will Blalock and redshirt junior J Hwang are returning off of an injury. Forehand said that the amount of depth in the pitching staff makes for a lot of options.
“If we had to start tomorrow, we have J, Denton, Ian and Nick would probably be the guys if we played four games a week,” Forehand said.
Hwang and the rest of the team said they are eager to get back on the field, and finally see how this new team plays together.
“We have all the talent back on our team,” Hwang said. “We’re a really experienced team. We have a huge senior class, and I’m right in the middle of everything, so it’s exciting to see how much success is ahead of us.”
“You can only practice so much, and once you get into the game, you kind of realize where your team’s at as a whole,” Andros said.
Like the players, Forehand is ready to see his team in action as they open up Friday Feb. 13 at home against Butler.
“I want to see this team get out of the shadow of the expectation of what last year’s team did, and this year’s team will take on it’s own identity as the season progresses.”
Photo courtesy of Lipscomb Athletics