Underachieving. You've probably heard that word a lot on the USD campus this year. From the underachieving football team to the underachieving basketball team, the list goes on when discussing USD athletics. But the last place you would have expected to hear it was around Cunningham Stadium.
This was supposed to be the place where the Toreros baseball team avoided that same cruel fate that every other USD team has faced. It was supposed to be the safe haven where a nationally ranked Toreros ball club would feast on other opponents and give USD at least one conference title to brag about.
But as the young season has slowly grown older, it is a word that not even the Torero Baseball team has been able to avoid.
Underachieving. No word better sums up the first 18 games of the season. The USD hitters averaged a meager 4.4 runs per game in the 14 games following the opening weekend series when they took three of four games from Indiana.
However, with the way the Torero pitching staff was heralded coming in to the season, this was supposed to be acceptable. But aside from sophomore Sammy Solis, USD pitchers failed to live up to their billing, allowing a disappointing 5.6 runs per game over that same 14 game stretch.
Over spring break, the Toreros played plenty of baseball with an opportunity to prove themselves worthy of their preseason ranking as the 19th ranked team in the country.
The team started out the break getting shut out by a talented, but beatable, SEC team in the Kentucky Wildcats. The Toreros then bounced back and swept a two-game series against Monmouth, N.J. before dropping another contest to the 15th ranked UC Irvine Anteaters.
Following the sweep, the Toreros began play in the SDSU Invitational. As has been the case for seemingly every USD team, the team continued with their trend of beating teams they are expected to beat, and losing to teams that presented a challenge. They beat University of San Fransisco and Fresno State, but lost to a ranked Cal State Fullerton team that already beat them early on in March.
Perhaps the chatter around Cunningham Stadium got to the Toreros; perhaps they wanted to salvage what has been a disappointing year for USD athletics. But when they entered a weekend series with the 14th ranked Rice Owls, they were met with an unfamilar source of motivation. Seniors Nick McCoy and Mike Ferraro came to the stadium with fresh new mohawks and it had a profound effect on the team.
"We just wanted to get the guys loose and relaxed for the big game," Ferraro said. "But it actually got the guys pumped up and everyone really rallied around it."
The Toreros entered with a hunger that had not been seen this season.
For once, they looked determined to prove that while the first 18 games of their season may be summed up as an underachievement, the rest of their season certainly would not be.
Friday night's game steered them back in the right direction with a gutsy 6-4 victory. Kyle Blair was impressive on the hill, but it was the bat of James Meador that was most valuable in the victory, and the Toreros set the tone for the series.
If Friday's game was gutsy, then Saturday's was downright fearless. Even as the game went back and forth for the first nine innings of play, the Toreros never wavered, and junior shortstop Tony Strazzara hit a walk off single in the bottom of the tenth inning to give the Toreros a 6-5 win.
On Sunday, the Toreros were in perfect position to sweep the Owls, carrying a 6-5 lead into the top of the ninth.
But Darrin Campbell blew the save and allowed a four run inning. Now trailing by three runs, USD fought back in the bottom half, but they only managed two runs and dropped a close one 9-8.
Still, the series exceeded expectations and put the team at 11-10 on the season. Should the Toreros keep things going after this impressive showing against Rice, they will almost definitely look back to these three games as the turning point in their season and credit the rally ‘hawks for pumping them up.
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