Baseball | 4/24/2015 12:30:00 PM
By Mike Perrin
You might say the University of
West Alabama baseball team is kind of streaky. The 2015 season started with three straight losses before the Tigers roared to seven straight wins. Coach
Gary Rundles' squad then lost one, won three and lost three, won another, lost another.
Streaky, right? Well, after dropping the second game of a double-header at home to Lee on March 7, UWA streaked to 20 straight victories – the best run in Division II this year – which included five consecutive Gulf South Conference series sweeps. That run put UWA atop the GSC standings headed into a final weekend showdown on Friday with Alabama Huntsville for the right to host the league tournament. The Tigers, ranked 10th in the nation, are 33-9 overall and 23-6 in the GSC. Fifth-ranked UAH is 35-6-1, 21-6-1.
West Florida won the final game of a rain-delayed three-game series on Monday to finally snap the string, but UWA won two midweek games vs. Montevallo to start yet another streak.
"It's been awesome," weekend starter
Fernando Gonzalez said before the West Florida series. "We got to keep our beards. The school is getting into it. The professors ask us about it in class.
"It's been super fun to go to the field and watch the guys 'ball out' every week. Everybody is doing their part so the pressure is minimal. It's not about the streak, but to play our best so we will be able to host the conference tournament."
As a staff, West Alabama is No. 1 in the league with a 2.73 earned run average. The three weekend starters – Gonzalez (8-1 with a league-leading 1.89 ERA),
Gary Stubblefield (5-3, 2.37 ERA) and
Jorge Cruz (9-2, 2.69) – are ranked in the GSC top 10s in ERA, opponents' batting average and wins. Closer
Tanner Rainey sports a miniscule 1.19 ERA and 3-1 record in 22 appearances.
"Every now and then we talk about how good the staff has done," Gonzalez said, "but mostly it's trying to stay consistent and relay information about opposing batters. The guys playing defense behind us make it much easier to have those numbers. Those guys have saved a bunch of runs all year."
Gonzalez's 78 strikeouts rank third in the GSC and opposing hitters are batting .215 against him – fourth-best in the league. Last season, after transferring from East Central Community College in Decatur, about 70 miles from Livingston, Gonzalez earned second-team All-GSC honors with a 6-2 record and a 2.30 ERA. "West Alabama was the best fit for me coming out of East Central," he said. "The coaching staff was really cool through the recruiting process."
Gonzalez, a pre-engineering student who made the GSC's All-Academic team last season, complimented the coaching staff's recruiting efforts for this year's team, too. "The coaches did a very nice job recruiting some really good pitchers to add to the core we had from last year and the new guys have more than proved themselves," he said. "It goes back to the defense again, it has been impeccable."
UWA pitching coach
Nick McCurdy analyzed the staff this way: "Our weekend starters all have similar stuff. They are all right-handers and they all have low-90s velocity with quality two-seam fastballs and plus-sliders.
Josh Jones (a lefty) has been our midweek starter, but he could step in anytime and fill a spot in the weekend rotation. Our closer is a senior,
Tanner Rainey. He has all the stuff required to be considered a closer – mid-90s fastball and a slider that he uses to put hitters away."
McCurdy said the coaches also have confidence in the rest of the staff –
Seve Signa,
Brennan Catalano,
Michael Morley,
Donnie Elliot,
Brandon Pennington,
Brock Ward,
Jacob Neil,
Blaine Price and
David Cromer.
"Our pitching staff feeds off each other's success," McCurdy said. "Each pitcher has his unique actions on the mound, but all of them have the same mentality, which allows individual strengths to play together."
McCurdy praised Gonzalez for his attitude. "Fernando is a fierce competitor on the mound, who wants the ball in his hands when the game is on the line," he said. "He is a high-energy guy and is also one of our most athletic pitchers that we have on our staff. He truly loves coming to the ballpark every day and his actions on and off the field represent what the University of West Alabama and our baseball program is all about."
Gonzalez, a senior from Quintas Reales Guaynabo, near San Juan, Puerto Rico, said the pitching staff "set our goals in the fall to get better every day we go to the field and we've been getting after it since Day One. Struggling on opening week this season was a wakeup call to where we needed to get. I can speak for the starters that we try to one up each other every weekend."
This weekend, the Tigers will be trying to get one more win than the Chargers from Huntsville in order to enjoy a hometown tournament run.
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