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Tigers avoid series sweep with Sunday win
5/5/2008
By CONOR NICHOLL
cnicholl@dailynews.net
The Fort Hays State University baseball team entered the weekend series against Pittsburg State University with 15 wins in its last 21 games. The Tigers had captured nine straight Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association home contests and had lost just two conference games since April 6.
However, the Tigers uncharacteristically dropped three straight games at Larks Park to the Gorillas. That included a mistake-filled 4-3 loss in Game 1 of Sunday's Senior Day doubleheader. Fort Hays was on the verge of getting swept at home for the first time in three years.
"It stops now," sophomore right fielder Greg Bieker said.
"It needs to stop and we all came together."
Bieker helped end the Tigers' skid, the second longest since mid-March, with two homers and five RBIs in a 17-5 run-rule Game 2 victory. Overall, the Tigers hit five homers and received a solid start from senior right-hander James Simpson.
"In the second game we really came out and played like we needed to," Bieker said. "The mentality is that we have gotten used to winning and we expect to win every time we come out to the ball park. These three games we struggled and everyone is sick of losing. We came here to win and we expect to win."
Fort Hays finished the regular season with a 27-28 record and a 21-15 mark in conference play. The Tigers, who have the No. 4 seed in the conference tournament, will open against the regular season champs and the No. 6 team in the country, Emporia State University, in the first round of the MIAA tournament on Friday in Kansas City, Kan. First pitch is scheduled for 6 p.m.
The Tigers need to win the tournament to gain a spot in the NCAA tournament. At the very least, they have to win three of five games to finish the year at .500. Fort Hays last had a losing record in 1991, when the Tigers were 9-33.
"It is going to be a real testament to our guys to see how much character and investment they have," Fort Hays coach Rick Sabath said. "We have a tough task ahead of us and this team is capable of beating anyone that we play."
On Sunday, the Tigers didn't play up to their capabilities against the Gorillas, a sub-.500 team and a club finishing its season. In Game 1, the Tigers took a 2-0 lead in the first before Pittsburg State tied it in the third.
The Gorillas took the lead in the sixth when Tiger senior center fielder Richard Bonansea overran a fly ball by Gorilla shortstop Brett Hothan. The ball fell in for a two-base error. Later in the inning, Bieker miscued on a single to right and sophomore third baseman Tyler Robbins also made an error. The Gorillas scored two runs off the three miscues.
"We had no energy," Sabath said.
Hitting-wise, Fort Hays, a team that had scored in double figures in six straight games entering the weekend, tallied just three runs. Sophomore left-hander Matt Augustine (4-7) pitched well but took the loss.
"We did not perform up to our capabilities offensively," Sabath said. "I thought we got a little too nonchalant at the plate, a little too passive. We took way too many fastballs in hitter's counts. We have had a pretty good run of scoring some runs and it was almost like we expected it to happen instead of going out and earning those runs each and every inning.
"I think we were much more aggressive with those fastballs in the fourth game," he added.
That aggressiveness helped Fort Hays score in all but one inning. They tallied four in the first, including three off a Bieker homer over the left-center field fence.
The 6-foot-5 Bieker doubled to right-center field in the third inning and smacked a long homer in a five-run fourth. It marked his second multi-homer game this season. The Hays High graduate went 7-for-14 with four homers and seven RBIs in the series.
"He had a great series," Gorilla head coach Steve Bever said. "He is a big, long kid and when he gets extended, he can hit it a long way."
In the past six weeks, Bieker has raised his average 106 points to its .404 mark and hit all 13 of his homers.
He tied Robbins and junior first baseman Dusty Washburn for the team lead in RBIs (56). Bieker said he has not been "guessing as much" in the last few weeks and closely watching the spins from the pitchers' hand.
"Realizing which one is going to stay down and realizing which ones is going to start at my front shoulder and is going to dip right into the strike zone," he said.
The changes allowed Bieker to hit off-speed pitches better. Two of his homers this weekend came off of breaking balls, while the other two were on fastballs.
"A couple sliders, they start in off the plate and they break over and they are good pitches to hit," he said.
Washburn, junior Brett Becker and senior Brent Biggs also homered for Fort Hays and supplied Simpson with plenty of runs. Simpson pitched 6Ôªø2รขÑ3 innings to improve to 3-0.
| Scoreboard | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Sport | Date | Opponent | Score |
| BB | 5/11 | Central Missouri | L 4-2 |
| BB | 5/10 | Missouri Western | W 4-3 |
| BB | 5/09 | Emporia State | L 6-5 |
| BB | 5/04 | Pittsburg State | W 17-5 |
| BB | 5/04 | Pittsburg State | L 4-3 |
| BB | 5/03 | Pittsburg State | L 15-7 |
| BB | 5/03 | Pittsburg State | L 5-4 |
| SB | 5/02 | Central Missouri | L 3-1 |
| SB | 5/02 | Missouri Western | W 3-2 |
| SB | 5/01 | Pittsburg State | W 6-0 |
