Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Baseball/Softball First Pitch Luncheon

The Softball/Baseball First Pitch Luncheon was today in the Stadium Club Level. Our Spring Sports Division was there to get comments as the coaches addressed the crowd gathered.

Softball

Coach McGinnis started off talking about the All-Alabama Softball Classic in Birmingham beginning Friday. All D-I softball programs in the state are participating. This should be a fun event. Here are some additional comments from Coach McGinnis:

We are picked to finish first in the conference. We don’t talk about that. That is simply reaping the benefits from last year. We’re not the same team. Even if we had all 18 players back, we’re still not the same team.

We have 3 seniors this year. We have 4 freshmen, and we will need them to be impact players if we are going to be successful.

I’m most proud of the way they (the players) carry themselves as people and as student-athletes. We were the #1 team at JSU in terms of GPA. We had 7 players with a 4.0, and overall, the team had a 3.48 GPA.

Our #1 goal is to win the OVC and move on to the national tournament. We have a tough preseason schedule planned. In addition to playing UAB, Alabama, and Auburn, we’ll play Penn State, Ga Tech, and UConn. We designed this tough schedule to prepare us to win the OVC.

Baseball

Coach Case, celebrating 10 years at JSU, gave us an update on the baseball team. Here are comments from his report:

We had 5 guys from last year’s team sign professional contracts. In the last 2 years, the first player drafted in the MLB draft from a university in Alabama has been from JSU.

When I came here, I asked my coaches what would we want our program to stand for over time. We came up with 5 principles.

1. Make good grades and go to class. This is working…our team had a 3.26 GPA in the Fall semester.

2. Practice hard, play hard. This is not a difficult thing to do with our team. Our players don’t mind giving full effort.

3. Be first class in everything we do.

4. Strive for excellence in everything we do.

5. Treat other people like we want to be treated.

If we do these things, we will experience success. I think this is one of the reasons our program remains steady.

This year, we have a young team – only 4 seniors. How do you replace the guys we lost from last season? At one time, the guys we lost from last season were freshmen, and we were asking how we would replace the guys that we lost the prior year. That’s the nature of college sports – always replacing pieces. We’ll do that again this year. We have more good freshmen coming in. Other players will step up.

Auburn is coming to JSU this season to play baseball for the first time since 1985. We’re excited to get the opportunity to play them here. It should be an exciting season.

We’re quick – we can run. We might be a little lighter in power, but we’ll have some power. We have some guys that may be able to dominate on the mound.

Summary

This should be another good year for JSU on the diamond. Both teams are picked to win the conference. This will be a fun year. Both teams are talented. We’re looking forward to getting to know the players better as the season gets underway.

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