May 4, 6, 7, 8...USC, GSU (3)

[BGTerrier]

Lost to GSU 12-4 on Saturday. Need to take the rubber game tomorrow.

[lawdog]

http://campuscommuter.blogs.goupstate.c ... leaders-2/ Parenthetically, four guys hitting over .300,

[bigdogbarking]

Shortstop.......great observations. Need more from you.

[johnd7]

why did they take out dolinak after 5 inn and only 80 pitches smart move again

[WoCo NH Dude]

Hope Dolinak is not injured. Maybe he's a key arm for the upcoming games vs. USCS, Samford and UNC-G??

In the event the Terriers win all 5 SoCon games, do we have a shot to make the tourney?

[Natural]

7 Socon games left including today. (1 w/GSU, 3 w/Samford, 3 w/UNCG)

[lawdog]

http://athletics.wofford.edu/news/2011/ ... 15404.aspx Whoa...ten runs in the first inning.

[Ruckus]

If we can get the win v USCS and win the next 2 series, that would give us 26 wins on the year. While not .500 ball and probably not enough to get us in the tourney, it would be a big boost for the program and some improvement we can build on. We should NOT be satisfied with it but it is better than the way we have ended the last few seasons.
Really proud of the way the team went into hostile territory on the road in the swamp this weekend and beat up on the Iggles. We obviously played hard and earned the wins. Kids are competing and that's a good sign for the future. Winning begets winning. It sets expectations and the necessary level of play.
Keep it going Dogs!!!!

[Natural]

Check it out...in the hunt with two series to go. Tied for 8th spot.

http://www.soconsports.com/standings/St ... &SPID=1796

[woffordgrad94]

It was a very good weekend for the team to be able to take two of three on the road from a GSU team that is always in the upper eschilon of the conference. I'm glad I was wrong about the team getting licked...but considering our past track record, it is not hard to see why I was pessimistic. Actually, though, at 21-27 with 8 conference wins so far, this has been one of our best D-1 seasons. But we still have a ways to go. 8-16 cannot be an acceptable conference record. Samford on the road will be tough, but we should be able to pick up wins agains UNC-G for sure. We have a good shot to get to double-digit SoCon wins. But we can't be satisfied with that or have goals that modest. I think we should be at least .500 in the conference every year and compete for a title evey 2-3 years...THAT would be an acceptable goal. I'm glad to see some rays of light this year, but this program still needs work- make no mistake.

[Natural]

A school with less than 1500 students and only 4.5 scholarships won 2 out of 3 on the road from a school with 20,000 students, fully funded and sporting many drafted players. That is a first for this program.

[SC_Terrier]

Woffordgrad94 – How do you figure that a reasonable goal for Wofford’s program is to be .500 in the SOCON each year and to compete for a title every 2-3 years? To me, that is a ridiculous expectation for a program with 4.5 scholarships. That sounds more like the expectation for CofC, Elon, GSU, or the Citadel….all of which have either fully funded programs or close to it. Most of the people on this board that are critical of the program are unrealistic in their expectations. Unreasonable expectations of our program, in my opinion, remains to be one of the biggest problems our program faces. We have too many people that are either disconnected from college baseball or know very little about the busy side of college sports. More money/scholarships = wins/increased expectations.

I am not one to accept mediocrity; however, we have to be honest about our program. If I make $25,000 a year in salary, I shouldn’t expect to own a big house and a BMW….it’s not realistic. You must have financial resources in college sports to increase the talent level and win games…that’s the case in any sport.

I imagine that if Wallace were the head coach and he was producing the same results as Coach I everyone on this board would be screaming for more scholarships. No-one would believe that it was poor coaching; everyone would conclude that funding is the problem. I remind you that our basketball program was experiencing poor performance each year prior to 2007 and because everyone liked Mike Young, he received a pass because the program was not fully funded.

Use the basketball program has the benchmark. More funding meant better talent and more wins…the coaching didn’t change. Most of you that played for Coach Line played in a different era. When you are competing in the #7 ranked conference in the country, you have to bring the money to compete. It is ridiculous to believe anything else.

[Ruckus]

Despite my playing in the Line era, I agree that we need better financial resources and more money should equate to more wins and higher expectations. However, I think the response to that point is: which should come first: Money or respected established leadership and commitment to the program by the college? I think both are valid points and neither in and of themselves are the sole solution to our problem.
The football program is a fine example. We began to see more Ws in the SoCon with more scholarships but Ayers' leadership was already long since established and recognized.
I do think, as a former player, that we are certainly playing a tougher schedule top to bottom that requires better support. However, it is concerning when I see us make fundamental errors and mistakes year and year out, i.e. doing stupid crap. Like getting picked off, repeatedly missing cut off men which allow runners to take the extra base, booting routine balls, and failing to get bunts down or simply fielding a bunt and getting an out. It is these types of things that add fuel to the fire of those who find fault with the program or hire. We may not not ever be fully funded but we can play a better brand of baseball than we have played in recent years. Quite frankly, every time I see us play I am impressed with the level of talent we do have. It's the culture and taking care of the little things that must change if we are to be successful. Change those and I can guarantee the funding will come............eventually.

[woffordgrad94]

sc_terrier, so you are not one to accept mediocrity?- Well, you could've fooled me.

Ruckus is right- a lot of games are lost by fundamental mistakes that have nothing to do with a lack of scholarships. We can do better than what we've been doing, and .500 in the SoCon is NOT unrealistic!

The series win at GSU was very impressive- no doubt about it. We'll see if that success can be sustained at Samford.

[dialing8]

. However, it is concerning when I see us make fundamental errors and mistakes year and year out, i.e. doing stupid crap. Like getting picked off, repeatedly missing cut off men which allow runners to take the extra base, booting routine balls, and failing to get bunts down or simply fielding a bunt and getting an out. It is these types of things that add fuel to the fire of those who find fault with the program or hire. .

Wouldn't this have a bunch to do with the quality of the players that Wofford can really go after AND wouldn't the number of players that a coach could recruit with more scholarships help solve this problem.
The way I see it is that a coach with limited funds has to try to field as complete a team as possible with limited resources. There are not a bunch of really talented kids on the bench in underfunded programs to press the starters due to the numbers the coach has to work with.
A year or so ago I laid out an explanation about position players getting the NCAA min. of 25% and starting pitchers really needing 50% offers to be able to compete with the other offers these same kids get from Wofford's competition(i. e. the other schools looking at the same kid).
I also said I thought you needed 5 starters and one closer and needed to hope they stayed healthy.( this would call for the use of 3 full scholarships). Then add about 6 middle relievers at 25% each for 1.5 more scholarships.
Then you need 8 position player, a DH and at least a backup outfielder, backup middle infielder and a backup catcher. All these need 25% each for a total of 3 scholarships.
So just to be able to make the tournament you need 7.5. This is about what Furman has had for the last 10 years.
The extra 4.2 scholarships that the NCAA allows is for a team to have competition for starting jobs and replacements for kids that do not pan out, get injured, can not figure out the fundamentals( like throwing to the cutoff man) or just have no desire to play after they see the number of hours it takes to play this game at the D1 level.