A Sea Of Red

Liberty returns home to the friendly confines of Liberty Baseball Stadium after getting an important non-conference win on Wednesday and welcome the High Point Panthers to town. HPU comes in with a record of 12-8 and a 2-1 Big South record after taking two of three from Coastal in High Point (first time since 2011 that CCU has lost their first road conference series of the season.

The Flames have not lost a series at home to the Panthers since 2006 when they played at Worthington Stadium. Liberty has only lost tiwce in the last 14 games, including two shutouts and 5 games allowing only one run.

After getting down 4-1, Liberty roared back against the Panthers and leads 5-4 in the 7th

Flames win 6-4

Friday night game story:

http://www.newsadvance.com/sports/liber ... f6878.html

Photo gallery http://www.libertyflamesnation.com/phot ... igh-point/

After the rough start, Lambert really settled down and Perritt is making himself some future money in the closer role for us.

Flames up now 4-0 in the 6th. Herndon having a strong outing so far.

Flames up 8-1 home half of the 8th and well on the way to another series win

Nice win. Lets get the sweep tomorrow. Prayers for the HPU center fielder.

We are red hot right now (and the crowds are starting to show it)

Saturday game story:

http://www.newsadvance.com/sports/liber ... f6878.html

The player that was hurt was Josh Greene, please keep him in your prayers. He is probably OK but prayers never hurt.

He was downgraded to non-emergency. He wanted to walk off the field but the medical staffs wouldn't allow it as a precaution.

What I found a little troubling is they carried him off the field and laid him on the sidewalk outside the stadium waiting for his ride (ambulance). He was on his back 15 minutes in the stadium and on the sidewalk at least 15 minutes - I guess because it was considered non emergency

yet another reason for an on-campus paramedic unit.

I've only been whining about that for 10 25 yrs

I nominate PAmedic to head up an on-campus PAramedic team. Excellent idea. Let's get this rolling guys.

We need LUconn to suggest it for it to come to fruition. That guy is a like a prophet.

CLowers shuts em down and gets Bean off the hook in the 5th with the bases loaded and the Flames still lead 2-1

Get out the brooms as we sweep HP. Guys looked good, all 3 games. Defense was very solid and the coaches did an outstanding job of handling the pitching corps. R-S-P-E-C-T.
Roll on Flamestrain.

Clowers is making himself some money right now. He has been absolutely dealing the last couple weeks

Sunday game story:

http://www.newsadvance.com/sports/liber ... f6878.html

Good sweep this weekend.

Great write-up Chris.

If we dont crack the top 25 we will be on the doorstep. Flametrain!

jinxy wrote:If we dont crack the top 25 we will be on the doorstep. Flametrain!

We were #41 heading into this weekend.

A couple of things stuck out to me in that article. The first, and in my opinion the biggest, is this quote:

“Honestly, it’s just looking for a fastball and adjusting to whatever else is coming,” Sankey said. “Then I just try to work the middle of the field. I got a changeup and I was able to hit it through the hole.”

In the past, we just tried to pull everything and hit it as hard as we could. Credit the staff for making the changes and adopting this approach. I truly believe it's this approach that's allowed us to get so many 2-strike and 2-out hits this year.

Liberty has won 12 of its last 13 since starting the season 6-6...

After tinkering with the lineup the first 8-10 games, which Toman said he would before the season even began, he hasn't done much in terms of huge changes since. He's found a pretty consistent lineup with a few tweaks here and there and the team has been able to gel. In the past, if a guy had a bad game, he was jerked out of the lineup for the next couple of games. That hasn't happened this year.

“We made up for not sweeping the last conference team,” Toman said. “We had an opportunity to and we didn’t, and we felt like we let that one slip away. Once you win those first two, you want to win the third. I’m proud of the guys for finally getting over the hump a little bit with that. That was good.”

This sounds small, but admitting that we've let that third game of a sweep get away is a big step to getting past it. He's stressing the importance of getting the sweep.

Everyone on here knows I've been a huge Toman critic, but from the Big South tournament of last year until now he has coached differently. He has been much more loose. He's coached like the guy that he is when players come on their visits. He's given guys a chance to own this team and lead this team. A perfect example is allowing Grauer to call pitches on a regular basis. He trusts his players to go out there and make the plays in a way that he hasn't trusted his previous team.

I don't know if he purposefully made some of these small changes or if they're just a matter of learning how to be a head coach and experience, but regardless of the reason, he's doing a great job with this team this year. We will go where he leads us, and if he continues to lead like this, I've got no doubt we'll be in a regional this year.