University of North Carolina Ashville Athletics
Photo by: UNC Asheville
Baseball Preparing for Season-Opener with First Week of Practice
02.03.2017 | Baseball
ASHEVILLE, N.C. – With a week of practice under its belt, the UNC Asheville baseball team is eyeing the start of the 2017 season while focusing on making the entire team better.
While there are still two weeks to go before the first series at Samford, those two weeks are valuable as head coach Scott Friedholm has liked what he has seen thus far, but knows there are still strides and improvements to be made.
"I think we have had a good effort this first week," Friedholm said. "The guys weren't as clean and as sharp that we, as coaches, would want them to be the first weekend on Friday and Saturday, but we had a very good eight-inning intersquad on Sunday that kind of got our hopes back up. The guys have a done a tremendous job with their effort and energy out at practice every day. If we can continue that energy and focus, we'll be fine and it will be fun."
The first official day of team practice was Friday, Jan. 27, and the operative word has always been 'team.' Since then, the squad has had five full team practices and plenty of opportunity to improve, including optional pitching and hitting sessions on days off that the team has taken advantage of.
"Everything is 'team' right now," Friedholm said. "If they want to hit on their own, they come in on their own time and do that. But when we get into team practice and intersquads, it's all about team fundamentals; your cuts and relays, bunt defense, first-and-third defense, rundowns and pop ups. Those things have been our main focus. At this point of the year, it's really just refreshing what we did in the fall and getting them back in the swing of the 'team first' mentality. They've done a great job with that."
The team is a mostly veteran crew with only eight freshmen joining the 18 players that were on the team last season. But even those freshmen have already become veterans in the eyes of their coaches and teammates and the first week of practice has only solidified that.
"I think the guys passed that test back in November at the end of our fall practice," Friedholm stated. "Our freshmen are now comfortable enough to say to an upperclassman, 'This is where you need to be on this play.' We're right where we need to be with that and our freshmen have done a great job of not being afraid to speak up. But that's all because of the way the upperclassmen handle it. They listen, they are good teammates and they are having those discussions."
As expected, certain veterans' names pop up when talking about who has performed well in the first week of practice.
"There have been a lot of guys playing well early on," Friedholm said. "Joe Tietjen, in his first at-bat during one of our intersquads, he took the first pitch he saw and hit a home run to dead center. Brandon Lankford, Chris Troost and Carmine Pagano have all been doing their jobs as well. On the mound, Ryan Tapp, Spencer Orr and Nick Boyles have done a great job so far."
While the first week has been sort of a "knocking the rust off" stage, the second week will be a chance for the team to get even more focused and tuned in on how things will be during the season. Shorter intersquad scrimmages will be replaced with true game-length scrimmages.
The coaches will still insert special situations from time-to-time, but it's all designed to get the guys into mid-season form heading into that first weekend.
"There won't be a change in the focus, it will still be about the team," Friedholm said. "We want to see cleaner games on Friday and Saturday of this week, both on the mound and defensively. And we want to see the guys take better care of the baseball in the field. Also now, we're starting to extend, meaning we'll be playing eight and nine-inning games to see how our guys mentally handle full-length games. And now we're going to really start putting in the true live game situations."
UNC Asheville opens the season on Friday, Feb. 17, traveling to Birmingham, Ala., to take on Samford in a three-game series. The Bulldogs' home opener is slated for Friday, March 3, against Iona at Greenwood Field, in the first of a three-game series.
While there are still two weeks to go before the first series at Samford, those two weeks are valuable as head coach Scott Friedholm has liked what he has seen thus far, but knows there are still strides and improvements to be made.
"I think we have had a good effort this first week," Friedholm said. "The guys weren't as clean and as sharp that we, as coaches, would want them to be the first weekend on Friday and Saturday, but we had a very good eight-inning intersquad on Sunday that kind of got our hopes back up. The guys have a done a tremendous job with their effort and energy out at practice every day. If we can continue that energy and focus, we'll be fine and it will be fun."
The first official day of team practice was Friday, Jan. 27, and the operative word has always been 'team.' Since then, the squad has had five full team practices and plenty of opportunity to improve, including optional pitching and hitting sessions on days off that the team has taken advantage of.
"Everything is 'team' right now," Friedholm said. "If they want to hit on their own, they come in on their own time and do that. But when we get into team practice and intersquads, it's all about team fundamentals; your cuts and relays, bunt defense, first-and-third defense, rundowns and pop ups. Those things have been our main focus. At this point of the year, it's really just refreshing what we did in the fall and getting them back in the swing of the 'team first' mentality. They've done a great job with that."
The team is a mostly veteran crew with only eight freshmen joining the 18 players that were on the team last season. But even those freshmen have already become veterans in the eyes of their coaches and teammates and the first week of practice has only solidified that.
"I think the guys passed that test back in November at the end of our fall practice," Friedholm stated. "Our freshmen are now comfortable enough to say to an upperclassman, 'This is where you need to be on this play.' We're right where we need to be with that and our freshmen have done a great job of not being afraid to speak up. But that's all because of the way the upperclassmen handle it. They listen, they are good teammates and they are having those discussions."
As expected, certain veterans' names pop up when talking about who has performed well in the first week of practice.
"There have been a lot of guys playing well early on," Friedholm said. "Joe Tietjen, in his first at-bat during one of our intersquads, he took the first pitch he saw and hit a home run to dead center. Brandon Lankford, Chris Troost and Carmine Pagano have all been doing their jobs as well. On the mound, Ryan Tapp, Spencer Orr and Nick Boyles have done a great job so far."
While the first week has been sort of a "knocking the rust off" stage, the second week will be a chance for the team to get even more focused and tuned in on how things will be during the season. Shorter intersquad scrimmages will be replaced with true game-length scrimmages.
The coaches will still insert special situations from time-to-time, but it's all designed to get the guys into mid-season form heading into that first weekend.
"There won't be a change in the focus, it will still be about the team," Friedholm said. "We want to see cleaner games on Friday and Saturday of this week, both on the mound and defensively. And we want to see the guys take better care of the baseball in the field. Also now, we're starting to extend, meaning we'll be playing eight and nine-inning games to see how our guys mentally handle full-length games. And now we're going to really start putting in the true live game situations."
UNC Asheville opens the season on Friday, Feb. 17, traveling to Birmingham, Ala., to take on Samford in a three-game series. The Bulldogs' home opener is slated for Friday, March 3, against Iona at Greenwood Field, in the first of a three-game series.
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