A Sea Of Red

UVA visits LU on October 1. game time is 12:00.

Reminder LU vs UVA Saturday 12:00. We might set a new attendance record for baseball, even though it's just a fall exhibition game.

I am surprised there are no posts here on UVA game yesterday.

Game was 14 innings. First 9 was regulation baseball. Last 5 innings was situational play. Score was kept for all 14 innings. UVA was ahead 8-4 at end of 9-4. I heard LU won 14-9 after 14 innings. I left after 12 with score tied 9-9 I think. We swung bats fairly well. Mostly singles. No home runs. Pitching was fair. DeGroat did not pitch while I was there.

ballcoach15 wrote:I am surprised there are no posts here on UVA game yesterday.

Game was 14 innings. First 9 was regulation baseball. Last 5 innings was situational play. Score was kept for all 14 innings. UVA was ahead 8-4 at end of 9-4. I heard LU won 14-9 after 14 innings. I left after 12 with score tied 9-9 I think. We swung bats fairly well. Mostly singles. No home runs. Pitching was fair. DeGroat did not pitch while I was there.

You were THERE and you don't even know what happened

So we won when it didn't matter anymore. Awesome.

The best thing I heard out of this game is that everything we were doing made sense. Coach Toman did his own thing and it went against conventional wisdom a lot of times.

Ive heard locklear is looking the part. Could be another 4 year starter at ss though he has more upside than britt

There's nothing wrong with going against conventional wisdom unless it doesn't work (sounds like something ballcoach might say)

Notable quotes from the D1Baseball article:

The Good

“Jake Barbee’s a senior who’s had an unbelievable fall for us,” Jackson said. “He just barrels everything he hits. That back-side double (on Saturday) was very typical of what Jake’s been able to do for us this fall.”

“These kids are great kids, they wanted a lot of structure, a lot of organization and a lot of pace to practice. So that’s what we gave them,” Jackson said. “It’s a lot of transition for us, a lot of trying to put a lot of things in in a short period of time. As a first-year head coach, you want to set the energy level, and just try to take our kids and put them on the field and say, ‘You know what? This is our three hours today. I want you to leave everything in the locker room. I want you to come out here and just give me what you got for three hours. If you screw up because you’re trying to play a little faster and be aggressive, I’m fine with that.’ And they’ve run with it. It’s been fun so far. We’ve got a ways to go, but I think we’re going to get there.”

“He’s (DeGroat) been in some big situations, and he’s our best life-on-the-fastball and velo guy, but he’s still got a ways to go to pitch,” Jackson said. “It’s power stuff, just lack of consistency sometimes with the secondary stuff right now. So repeating his delivery, obviously he’s a converted catcher so still working on repeating his delivery and working on locating and challenging hitters in the zone. His pitch counts get up sometimes and he gets in counts that aren’t in his favor. If he can work to manage the count a little better and minimize his innings, stay in that 12-17 pitch range, he’s got a chance to stay out there six or seven innings.”

The Not-So-Good-But-Not-Surprising-Given-Our-Old-Pitching-Coach

So while Liberty surely wants to bolster its firepower on the mound in the future, the Flames have enough experienced pitchers who can spin breaking balls and present different looks. Pitching coach Bryant Gaines should be able to piece together a competitive staff using all of those pieces.

What I liked most from Coach Jackson is that he’s positive about where we are, is specific about where guys need to improve, and is giving guys a chance to prove themselves without worrying about messing up and getting benched forever.

There were 28 MLB scouts at the game.

We should hit and hit a lot this year with the returning talent. The question will be how many of these pitchers can they turn around.

I am worried about "lack of HR Power" in lineup.

If we're hitting doubles in the gap consistently I couldn't care less about home runs.

I enjoyed listening to Coach Jackson's fall ball report. He is such a better talker, motivator, speaker than Toman. Any kid should want to play for this man; his enthusiasm for the game is so refreshing, not dwelling on the negatives all the time like Toman. I hope he makes a huge difference in this team; I believe he will.

Anybody know what the former coaching staff is doing now?

My favorite part is that our guys wanted to focus on pitching and defense. Jackson said they spent two weeks not taking much BP to instead focus on those things. I guarantee those two weeks were more pitching and defense than we've done in the past five years combined.

He also said we're wanting to be able to score runs without getting hits. He mentioned stealing, bunting, and the aspects of small ball that will be most effective in our park.

I love we're focusing on everything and the fundamentals and coaching kids up.

Here's hoping this is the last we hear about Toman and we focus on supporting Coach Jackson and not spending a lot of extra time and energy comparing the two once fall ball is over.

When you have a new coach, you're going to compare and contrast with the old coach.

Another piece I liked in the video was when Coach Jackson mentioned they don't say the word Omaha anymore. I bet that giant Omaha mural gets changed soon.

It's only natural to compare coaches. I found myself doing that Saturday at the football game. I saw our basketball coach down at field level, talking with people , going in the FOC, etc. Never saw that from previous coach.
Jackson has instilled new life into baseball at LU.

Jonathan Carone wrote:When you have a new coach, you're going to compare and contrast with the old coach.

Another piece I liked in the video was when Coach Jackson mentioned they don't say the word Omaha anymore. I bet that giant Omaha mural gets changed soon.

I thought that exact same thing. I get the sense that he is rooting out any sense of entitlement that may have existed in the past. I love how he is instilling in these guys that Omaha is something earned through hard work and a lot of fight and they are not there yet.

Also love he isn't doing batting practice yet. "Previous" coaches would consistently say, "Look big guy, I can't use you if you can't hit it over the light pole or run a 6.7 60". Everything about the prior regime was about hitting "Bombs". You lose track of technique and skill when that becomes your focus.

I think that Omaha ought to be something that they aim for, but I agree that it isn't something that should be met with a sense of entitlement, so I think that it ought to be put in front of them still, just not in as obtrusive a way.

As for the hitting, when you live by the sword, you die by the sword...if you live by the longball, youll die by the longball too. Id rather have a team that can string together 4 or 5 singles and score timely runs than a bunch of guys who can mash balls 400 feet but can't execute a simple hit and run in rookie ball.

read and acknowledged lol

Omaha is the goal. It should always be the goal. Taking the fantasy and titillation of reaching Ohama out of their conversations and allows them to focus on doing the right things, the small things, to reach their goal. That starts with defense and pitching. Love what Jackson is doing so far.

LUnpretty11 wrote:Omaha is the goal. It should always be the goal. Taking the fantasy and titillation of reaching Ohama out of their conversations and allows them to focus on doing the right things, the small things, to reach their goal. That starts with defense and pitching. Love what Jackson is doing so far.

With
That could kinda sorta be the philosophy of the entire athletic department but what do I know. Just replace Omaha with FBS or FCS Playoffs or whatever.
Although I don't think you are allowed to say titilation

Purple Haize wrote:

LUnpretty11 wrote:Omaha is the goal. It should always be the goal. Taking the fantasy and titillation of reaching Ohama out of their conversations and allows them to focus on doing the right things, the small things, to reach their goal. That starts with defense and pitching. Love what Jackson is doing so far.

With
That could kinda sorta be the philosophy of the entire athletic department but what do I know. Just replace Omaha with FBS or FCS Playoffs or whatever.
Although I don't think you are allowed to say titilation

Really? I wasn't aware it was a bad thing to say. Genuinely.

But you know how much I have used 4 letter words on this board! Sarcastic font