Mounties baseball control their own destiny

By: Ray Peregrina

Posted: 3/9/09

Midway through the regular season, the Mt. SAC baseball team (15-6), (5-1) is atop the South Coast Conference standings. At practice on Mar. 11, Mounties head coach Stacy Parker spoke about the progress his team has made during the 2009 year.

"Yeah, 15-6, we're happy with that," Parker said as his team ran base running drills in the warm afternoon sun. "And we're happy that we're in first place and at least a game ahead of everybody else in the conference…but when we critique our performance, we're not critiquing whether we won or lost. It's based on whether we've played up to our standards, the Mountie Baseball standards, and we've underachieved in a lot of those areas."

Mt. SAC has had good pitching this season, but Parker said that improving the inconsistent offense will be the key for the team going into the second half of the season and through the playoffs.

"Offensively, we've struggled a little bit at times scoring runs and being consistent swinging the bat," Parker said. "We've struck out a lot. We've struck out 150 times as a team this year in 21 games. So we're trying to work on a better two-strike approach and being more competitive with two strikes at the plate. Our base running has been poor at times. You know, we've left a lot of base runners out there."

Two pitching bright spots for the Mounties have been sophomore Shane Youngdale (who Parker said has taken over the de facto No. 1 slot in the rotation) and freshman reliever Juan Guerra.

"He has been phenomenal out of the 'pen," Parker said of Guerra. "I think he's got a 0.50 ERA or something like that. He's just a strike-throwing machine and goes right after guys. He's not intimidated and has been outstanding for us."

Parker said the goal for Mt. SAC baseball this year is to win the South Coast Conference championship.

"That's been the goal from day one," said Parker. "We go out and be champion. And that really will happen only if we take care of things on a daily basis. You know…how we practiced. Did we practice like a champion every day? Did we compete like a champion every day? And at the end of the year, the numbers will be in our favor and I think we have a good opportunity to achieve the goal that we want."