Bobcats have big appetite

After defeating the fifth ranked team in the nation, the University of Tampa, GC&SU baseball certainly has fans excited.

However, Head Coach Chris Calciano wants his team to disregard the hype and “stay hungry.”

Opening day for the Bobcats turned out to be a tremendous success. On Friday Feb. 3, GC&SU defeated the University of Tampa Spartans 20-8 in an offensively dominated game, and in game two of the series, edged the Spartans 2-1.

The next day the Spartans bounced back and won the last of the three games 4-2.

When asked about the series win over Tampa Coach Calciano said,

“Well fortunately we swung the bats extremely well in game one and we pitched well enough to win game two, but we didn’t play defense the way we needed to in any of the three games.”

The Bobcats most recently competed in a tournament in Valdosta where they defeated Florida Gulf Coast University (8-1), Eckerd College (22-3) and Valdosta State (2-1).

The first few games have been successful for the Bobcats, going 5-1 in non-conference play, and defeating and replacing a top ranked team in the Collegiate Baseball Magazine NCAA Division II Poll.

“I just make sure our guys understand, you can’t rest on your laurels, you can’t say we’re the fifth best team in Division II-that stuff hasn’t been proven yet,” said Calciano about the teams current rank of fifth in the nation. “We want to be in the top five in the nation, come April and May, when we’re getting ready for regionals and the conference tournament, that’s when we want to be an elite program.”

The first home game this season at John Kurtz Field brought a big turnout, junior Patrick McAfee said.

“We really made a great showing from the players and the fans-if we can keep it up we’re bound to have success later on in the year.”

Calciano was glad to see the turnout at the game. He said the atmosphere was the best he has seen in his time at GC&SU.

The Bobcats took the field Wednesday Feb. 15 in Carrolton in a 4-2 loss against the University of West Georgia. The loss sanpped the teams three game win streak.

The Bobcats begin conference play with their next home game against Columbus State on Friday Feb. 24.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Feb 17 2006. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry