Experience has UE baseball flying atop the Valley: 'We just know we’re a good club'
EVANSVILLE — Eric Roberts just needed one pitch. Everyone at Charles H. Braun Stadium knew it was gone as soon as he made contact and watched it sail over the right-field wall.
Roberts has been key to the University of Evansville’s hot start this season. His home run Wednesday evening against Southeast Missouri State was the Purple Aces’ 15th in five games. Unfortunately for UE, that wasn’t enough to continue their tear.
The Aces’ 10-4 loss to the Redhawks snapped a nine-game winning streak and prevented the Aces from their first 10-game run since 2006. Still, this has been one of the program's best starts ever.
UE (16-8, 3-0 Missouri Valley Conference) had high hopes coming into the season. It was picked to finish third in the MVC in the preseason coaches poll and started league play with a three-game road sweep of Missouri State. Prior to Wednesday’s game, the Aces had won 16 of 18 contests and were No. 34 in RPI, second among MVC teams behind Indiana State.
Those preseason expectations, to this point, have largely been met.
“We just know we’re a good club. We’re a confident group, we believe in one another” coach Wes Carroll said. “We started a little slow opening weekend, but we knew if we just kept to it, our offense and defense was gonna start clicking behind our starting pitching.”
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UE has an experienced team with seven upperclassmen starters and 13 more in the reserves. Regular starting senior outfielder Mark Shallenberger has missed most of the season with a broken hand, which has brought younger players into the fold, such as North High School graduate Ty Rumsey.
Carroll hopes to have Shallenberger ready for the April 14-16 series at Southern Illinois but won’t rush his recovery. There are still 31 games remaining before the conference tournament.
“Being old in college baseball is huge,” Roberts said. “It helps with the young guys, too. I’m sure a lot of them are grasping on and learning from that.”
The Aces started poorly last season, beginning 3-10 before finishing 32-24. That experience has carried over to this year’s campaign and its strong start. UE’s leadership helped it bounce back from an 0-5 start and has propelled them into the very early at-large conversation for an NCAA Tournament bid.
“There wasn’t any panic,” Carroll said. “We have a lot of belief in our talent level and it finally just started to perform. There hasn’t been one thing that set it off.”
Carroll pointed to three aspects that turned things around: Great defense, quality starting pitching and the offense heating up. Those were key to the quick turnaround and will be this weekend against Belmont.
“We know (Belmont’s) pitching staff is gonna be prepared against our offense,” said Carroll, noting that former UE pitching coach A.J. Guara is now with the Bruins. “We’re just gonna have to fill it up at a high level.”
The success, both to this point and moving forward, comes down to that experience.
UE’s strong offense leads the way
The Aces’ success has mostly come at the plate.
UE scored six or more runs in six of seven games leading into Wednesday. Roberts, Chase Hug and Simon Scherry each have batting averages of over .304. UE has 34 home runs as a team and 39 multi-base hits.
The first seven batters in UE’s order Wednesday were upperclassmen.
“Having an old lineup is good,” Roberts said. “The more pitches you see, the better you’re gonna get. Your approach gets better as the years go on.”
Roberts’ 10 home runs, 28 runs, 33 RBI and .422 batting average lead the MVC and he has a 30-game on-base streak that extends to last season. Hug’s .711 slugging percentage is second in the league while his .511 on-base percentage is top. That’s where the “loud barrels” come into play, Carroll said.
“Guys having success in our lineup are making it simple, they’re swinging at strikes and taking balls,” Carroll said. “I think if you just break it down, the simplicity of hitting, it’s the guys who are having high on-base percentage and high slugging percentage are guys who are not chasing out of the zone.”
Wednesday’s loss was just the fifth time the Aces scored four or fewer runs. UE is tied for 97th in the country for runs scored with Missouri, New Orleans and Washington State.
“Having an offense that can explode for crooked numbers and big innings, we just need our pitchers to keep us in ballgames,” Carroll said. “We’re always gonna have a chance in winning time in the seventh, eighth, ninth inning.”
Defensive and pitching success have gone a long way, too
UE’s 118-inning streak without an infield error was snapped Wednesday in the top of the ninth. Scherry and Brent Widder have been the anchors on the left side of the infield while Kip Fougerousse has emerged as a strong second baseman. Hug at first base rounds out the infield of all upperclassmen.
“Whenever you have that type of defense clicking,” Carroll said, “it makes the pitcher’s job pretty easy where he can just attack the hitters.”
Carroll said he thinks the pitching staff has done well in terms of limiting walks, wild pitches and hitting batters. That, paired with the success of the infield, has kept UE from allowing many free bases.
“I think our pitching staff has done an outstanding job of working ahead in counts, getting strikeouts when needed and just the little areas of the game within the game,” Carroll said. “Pitching in general has been able to keep the leadoff hitter of base a lot.”
The early success of this season comes down to the character and experience of the team. Offensively, defensively and on the mound, that has proven to be the key thus far.
“We got a lot of great character. It starts on the mound, we’ve got some great quality starting pitching,” Carroll said. “I feel like we have some depth in our bullpen if we’re put in the right places to be successful. … Offensively, I feel like we have some guys, top to bottom in our lineup, that can pick each other up and have big innings.”
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Evansville Purple Aces baseball riding hot streak to top the MVC
