Head coach Matt Curtis was not happy with happiness.
Curtis was not banning his players from being happy altogether, but he was merely saying his players should not get happy with a simple victory, which he said is the tendency of the team.
He added that hopefully the team will start to create a mentality of looking forward, preparing for the next thing and not worrying about wins or losses.
“We’re going to have a good hard practice today, that’s where it starts. After a win, don’t let back and have an easy practice,” Curtis said. “We’re going to put work in and work on everything that we can work on and we’re going to work at a fast pace.”
Assistant coach Tim Leary also addressed the issue of the team relaxing after getting a big win against a big opponent.
“The strategy of the game is baseball. Don’t get complacent out here. I don’t care if you win 10 games, we got to go out and do scouting,” Leary said.
The big win the coaches were talking about was Tuesday’s 11-6 victory against the UNLV Rebels, which came into the game with a record of 16-3 and three series sweeps on their season.
The Cal State Northridge baseball team (11-7, 0-0 Big West) came roaring from the start, as they struck first with three runs in the second inning. Leftfielder Adam Barry singled and Josh Goossen-Brown doubled to put men at second and third bases. Infielder Tommy Simis reached base on a bunt to load the bases.
A sacrifice fly by second baseman TS Reed and a couple of walks by Rebels pitcher Scott Dysinger made the score 3-0. The Matadors would score three runs again in the third inning to put the game 6-0.
After scoring a seventh run in the fifth inning, the Rebels would respond with six runs of their own to come within one run of tying the game. Third baseman Richie Jimenez and catcher Ryan Scott both recorded two-run home runs after Matador starter Paul Tremlin was relieved by Harley Holt.
CSUN would put the game out of reach in the seventh inning when outfielder Ridge Carpenter crushed the ball for his first home run of the season, a three-run shot that made it 11-6.
Tremlin pitched 5.2 innings and gave up four runs on seven hits and earned his first win of the season. The senior pitcher said he was not physically ready to face such a tough opponent, but was mentally ready.
“Visually I was prepared. Physically I wasn’t 100 percent because I just got back from pitching back-to-back games over the weekend, but mentally I was (ready). I have pitched against UNLV a lot over four years and I made a lot of starts against them so I kind of had an idea about their offense and I knew how to attack them,” Tremlin said.
Carpenter went 2-for-4 with four RBIs and Reed recorded three RBIs on two hits in three at-bats.
Jimenez led UNLV with one hit and two RBIs in four at-bats.
This weekend, the Matadors will face a Sacramento State team that is 4-12, with six of those losses being one-run games.
Derrick Chung, who is hitting .259 with 15 hits and five RBIs while playing every game, leads the Hornets.
Curtis is content with his team as they did not make any errors against UNLV, especially after committing 12 of them against Lafayette over the weekend, which was the major story.
“That’s the type of team we need to be. We need to play great defense to support our good pitching and score runs when we get opportunities to score runs and so yesterday was an execution of that. It was definitely a good turnaround,” Curtis said.
Series Notes: Due to bad weather in Sacramento, California, the series against Sac State will be played at Matador Field and will be a home series for CSUN. Game one will be on Friday and there will be a double-header on Saturday starting at noon.
