“We’ve come out strong pretty much every year and just finishing has been our issue,” said Head Coach Nick Black about the Guilford men’s baseball team. With the first game on Feb. 6 against Piedmont College, the 2010 season is rapidly approaching. Like last year’s season-opening win against Piedmont, the Quakers hope to start this year on the right foot.

In 2009, the Quakers won seven out of their first nine games but closed the season with two wins in their last nine games. This pattern goes back to the 2007 season.

“We’ve been the underdogs in the past,” senior pitcher Corey Landis said. “We haven’t been expected to do well, so when we came out so strong it went to our heads and we lost focus. This season we need to stay focused on the goal.”

The team has not made the Old Dominion Athletic Conference tournament since 2006.

“Obviously, we swung the bats extremely well last year,” Black said. “Defense was definitely our struggle. I feel like we’ve improved in both areas so we’re looking really good.”

The team has been training since the fall and has been working on defense and the more unexpected aspects of baseball.

According to Black, the training regimen does not vary much from day to day but there are variations of defensive sessions.

“One day we’ll go over bump coverage, one day we’ll go over first and thirds – stuff like that,” Black said. “Baseball can get very mundane sometimes if you’re doing the same stuff over and over and over. We try to mix it up, give a little more of the unexpected.”

An important training method to both the coaching staff and the team is the fall inter-squad scrimmages. According to Black and first-year pitcher Bret Peterson, scrimmages provide game experience and competition for the players as well as a method of evaluation for positions and player ability for the staff.

“(During inter-squads) you might get too competitive and angry at one another but we made it fun,” Peterson said. “We knew we were getting better and playing hard. I mean, we wanted to beat the other team but it was just how guys are with the trash talk and stupidness.”

Many players and coaches believe that the team has a good dynamic this season, and they are confident that this season will break the pattern of not making the tournament.

“I feel like our seniors this year have done a great job of getting guys together and getting them to understand that we do have a chance to do something special,” Black said. “We’re going to put a very good product on the field and be very competitive.