As baseball season rounds the corner, Utah has begun preparations, hoping to improve in both weak and strong areas. Looking back on the 2014-2015 season, head coach Bill Kinneberg noted that while he thought the team improved as a whole, its record wasn’t ideal.
Last season, the Utes started off on a high note with a win against Sacramento State (6-4). Then they suffered nine straight losses before winning their second game against Nicholls State (2-1). When everything was said and done, they ended the season with a 16-36-1 record.
“The one big area everyone looks at is wins and losses, and we did not improve in that area from the year before,” Kinneberg said. “It feels like we have made progress in a lot of areas. We are a better team from head to toe, but the end results were not what we were looking for, and we were not what we hoped to be.”
Last year’s record does not discourage Kinneberg, however. He thinks his retuning players learned a lot last season and will be able to use previous experiences to guide them this year.
“We will go game by game,” Kinneberg said. “We hope to make improvements in each aspect of the game, on the offensive and defensive side and even on the pitching side. All those things have shown improvement from last year because of our veteran leadership and players.”
One player sure to lead the way is second baseman Kody Davis, who is eager to get out on the field for his senior season.
“I am really excited to be able to learn from the mistakes that my team and I made last year and really try to turn this year around,” Davis said.
Aside from that veteran leadership, Kinneberg thinks the newcomers will give the team a boost and is confident any one of them will be able to step up if necessary.
“Hopefully injuries aren’t a factor as we go through, but we feel like we are a little more prepared this year if injuries do happen,” Kinneberg said.
In addition to overall improvement, Davis wants to see his team do a better job of closing out games. Last season, they didn’t do a great job of this, so Davis has been working on keeping up his energy throughout all nine innings, and he hopes this weekend, the entire team will get to see its hard work pay off.
“I think we need to have our best at bats offensively late in the game,” Davis said. “We are usually stronger early in the game and even strong in the middle of the game, so we just need to find a way to finish late and have our best at bats towards the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings.”
The Utes are competing in their first game Friday Feb. 19 in Surprise, Ariz. against Minnesota. The game starts at 5 p.m. AT.
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