 Hello and welcome to the Jason Taney show. I'm Joe Wamba joined with Jason Taney head coach of the baseball team. And coach, you guys get it open up a week later than seasons passed and paid off for you in a couple of respects. The starting rotation had a stellar performance. Yeah, starting rotation was phenomenal this weekend. We talked last week about the preview of the team. And so Dan Williams, James Rosinski, and Zach K. By the way, great name for a pitcher. His last name's K. All through the ball really well. They threw 16 innings this weekend in zero and runs. Can't ask anything more out of them, except hopefully going a little bit longer in games as we get into the season. We had each of them on a pitch count, which is what we traditionally do to build their innings up. But very excited about the start. Two sophomores and a freshman in our rotation. Very exciting for longevity too. Absolutely. It was a little bit about some hitting. Maybe some hitting struggles, but that's kind of sort of expected a little bit at this point in the season. Usually early in the season, pitching is ahead of hitting. And we saw that this week in our first game. We had a lot of nerves. And I think every, we have a lot of new starters this year. So a lot of guys were a little nervous in that first game. We hit enough that we, I think we had nine hits in the first game. We had enough to score enough runs. Yeah, we struggled with a couple defensive miscues. Second game hit the ball pretty well. Tough game in terms of the other team through 214 pitches and 107 balls and 107 strikes. Hard to get in the hitting group when there's that many balls being thrown. But, and then on Sunday facing Frostberg and facing their All-American pitcher. Very strong, very difficult. We actually squared the ball up off of them pretty well. But still tough, a tough go at it there. I will say as soon as he came out of the game, the first pitch there, Reliever, through Billy Small hit a ball about 450 feet to center field over the fence. So there's the evidence for you right there. You guys were swinging hard and dingin' them just right at guys. Yeah, it was a struggle in terms of finding some holes. We did sting the ball a little bit here and there. You know, we're not as much of a powering team as we were in the past, but we still have some power. I think we stole quite a few bases this weekend too. I think we had, I think it was seven or eight still on bases in three games. So our speeds coming through, which is what we were hoping would occur as well. When you talked about those three starters not giving up an earned run, the unearned runs came on throwing errors. Just maybe rushing it a little bit. Yeah, you know, again, we have some guys in new positions this year. And a couple of 10s plays early in the season, rushing a little bit, we threw a couple of balls away. Really did not do a bad job at physically fielding ground balls. I mean, that field, you know, Fayetteville's field, it's the swamp dog's field. It's okay. I'll take our home field. Thank you very much. Our home field's a little bit better. So we got a couple tricky hops or some lips there, but in all in all, I think we did okay there. More concerned about the positioning. We've had some issues with guys being in the right positions, and that's something we're gonna address this week in practice. It's all things that you can work on, which is the positive of it. Well, I tell you, one of the best things, we were talking about this on the way home in our coaches meeting after the weekend. Everything we struggled with, we can improve on. Everything we didn't do well, we can get better at. It's not a talent issue. It's now a matter of having the proper practices and taking steps forward. And we're lucky this week, we practiced Tuesday through Friday, all be outside, beautiful week coming up. So our guys are planning to get a lot of work done. I think they were a little disappointed we weren't at least two and one, if not three and no this weekend. And you guys, as we move forward into this weekend, after practicing outside, you never get to do that in February. You guys are going to be facing teams that are on their third leg, playing their third game. You guys are the benefit of the schedule in your hand. Yeah, somehow that happened that each game we're playing this weekend, we'll probably be facing their third starter. And obviously we'll have our one, two, and three. And quite frankly, we think we have three aces. We think our top three pitchers are all number ones. So yeah, things look good. Yeah, but it's the game of baseball. It was great on paper. We'll see how it works out. It's a 40 game season as it is. And I mean, all of them count, especially in out of conference, getting you guys prepared for the conference schedule. You know, you talked a little bit about facing their third starter. What other things are you guys expecting heading into these games? Well, I would expect that our defense plays a little bit better. Obviously as we're on the field more, I think that's going to get better. And I really expect our hitting to step up. You know, like I said, we showed glimpses this weekend of being really good. And so we're going to get there. I think with the extra reps this week, with the extra actually being on the field, you know, and I think that'll help motivate some guys. I think when you see backup players that had some opportunities this weekend that played really well, that's going to motivate some starters. Our catching core did a phenomenal job this weekend. And I really think it's because we have three catchers that can start at any time, anytime. Makes your decision harder, but you know, when somebody struggles, it makes your decision a little bit easier. It does. It does. You know, and we've got a junior, a diamond who's returning for his third year. And he's our primary catcher at this point, but we have a sophomore and a freshman right behind him. You know, and if you get to see us and see our infield outfield, you'll, everybody's jaws drop when they see our freshman Alex Kidwaller throw the ball around the diamond. He's got probably maybe the best arm we've ever had as a catcher here. That's saying something. Which is definitely saying something with a couple of guys we've had. Yeah. Well, coach, we wish you the best of luck heading into this week. And we look forward to that at home opener coming down the line. We can see that infield-outfield routine. Yeah, that sounds like a plan to me. And hopefully next Monday, we have this meeting, we'll be four and two. Three no this weekend. I'm hoping for it. So we're looking for it. Good luck, coach. Thank you. He's Jason Taney. I'm Joe Wamba. This has been the Jason Taney Show.