The Pride just keep on rolling as they swept Macomb University, Lansing CC and took two of three from Grand Rapids CC in the past week. Though they dropped one to Grand Rapids 5-4, it was a 12-11 victory over Lansing that was eye-opening.
The Pride haven’t let a team score over eight runs all year. Not only that, but they had an eight run lead heading into the fifth inning before Lansing notched seven more runs on the board to make it a one run game. As Coach Dintaman alluded to last week, there are some games where you can play bad and win.
“We had a good start. We just didn’t pitch it very well at the end there and didn’t do a good job defensively. It was good to hold on and win, especially in a midweek game. A lot of things could have happened, but we definitely figured it out this weekend and played a lot better,” said Dintaman.
The Pride will open up conference play this weekend against an 1-18-1 Lakeland team. Teams like the Pride, that are 21-2, have solid pitching, average eight runs a game and play so well together shouldn’t lose a single game against mediocre teams like Lakeland. If it wasn’t for that one tie, Lakeland would be on a 17 game losing streak, averaging two runs a game, while giving up nine runs a game. Teams like the Pride shouldn’t even come close to losing against them.
“We always talk about the fact that it’s baseball. You don’t have a guy score 40 points or score a bunch of touchdowns. It starts 0-0. Everyone has a chance. We just stay focused on winning pitches and winning innings. We just keep an eye on the prize at the end of the road,” said Dintaman.
The Pride certainly seem to be on their way to win the conference and hopefully make it to the World Series in Enid, Oklahoma. While it is much too soon to talk about that, it’s apparent that they just need to get through the season unscathed and fine-tune some parts of their game like defense and baserunning.
Until then, you just have to wait for the regular season to be over to get to that post season that everyone wants to see. Waiting for the regular season to pass might even get a little boring, but Dintaman doesn’t see it that way for him and his players.
“It’s about finding yourself as a team. The regular season is trying to come together. We are big on team chemistry and spend a lot of time together off the field — making sure everyone gets to know each other and spend time off the field. You really don’t start to come together as a group until you play games. As we’ve played 23 games, we’ve gotten even closer and been around each other more. If we keep playing those games and [are] around each other more, you’re going to see what you have,” said Dintaman.
Outside of a couple branch schools, the Pride will be playing conference games from here on out until the end of their regular season on April 30.
Matthew Summers
Sports Editor