BELTON–For the UMHB baseball program, last season’s disappointing—and at times frustrating—14-21 campaign does not live in the past.
Instead, as the Crusaders enter their season opener against Austin College on Friday night at Red Murff Field in Belton, they have chosen to use last year as motivation, and the intensity seen from the squad over the course of the last several weeks of the preseason is evidence it is working.
“I think the biggest mistake made with any team that had high expectations and didn’t meet them is they try to put it in the past,” UMHB head coach Mike Stawski said. “I won’t allow it. That’s going to be right in front of us.”
With an experienced group returning for the 2024 season, along with six transfers, UMHB is certainly in prime position to avenge last year’s performance. Maintaining consistency is a main focus, and Stawski is confident the team he is sending onto the field Friday night is much improved from the squad that dropped its final series of the season to Sul Ross State last May and missed the ASC Tournament.
“It’s something that lives in this team,” Stawski added. “It is more of a motivation and driving force rather than, ‘Oh man, we weren’t very good last year, I wonder if we’ll be good this year?’ It’s like,’ We’re never going to let that happen again. And it helps us correct some mistakes. The coaching staff made adjustments. The players made adjustments.”
Kaden deBerardinis is one of those players, as he returns for his senior year after making 28 starts in the outfield in 2023. The players certainly haven’t forgotten the challenges of last season, and as Stawski alluded to, are drawing upon it as a motivator, especially from a leadership standpoint.
“Nobody wants to go through that, but once you go through it, you have to learn from it,” deBerardinis noted. “One of the things we’re trying to imprint in our brains is, ‘Yeah, we want to win, but how do we handle the losses?’ That was such a huge loss [last season], and you could just throw it away and not learn from it. But we’re using it to build on the success this year.”
Making the necessary adjustments and increasing the competition level
Through both the fall and the early weeks of spring preseason practice, the coaching staff placed a specific emphasis on winning in game-type situations, which was refined through countless scrimmages. In terms of the adjustments made by the coaching staff, this was a significant one, and a prime example of identifying a point of weakness, and working to strengthen that as another season arrives.
“We actually scrimmaged every single day in the fall to get the guys to compete and win,” Stawski said. “Because honestly, last year we went into the spring, and the guys were really good at [batting practice], really good in the bullpen, and really good at taking fungos and all that. And then we got into the games and we weren’t good at the baseball game stuff. So we wanted to play baseball games and see who was good at that. The competition it brought was awesome.”
The level of competition has certainly tested The Cru each day in practice, considering there is only so much playing time to go around, and healthy competition forces each player to get better on a week-to-week basis.
“The competition has been the main thing that Stawski has been focusing on,” senior third baseman Rhett Grosz said. “In the fall, he was big on just winning. It didn’t matter how, just finding a way to win [was the big thing]. It’s been great. It’s gotten a lot of these newcomers and freshmen ready to play. It’s gotten some of us older guys better. I’m excited about it.”
“Being able to see the improvement from the first scrimmage until now, in the seniors and in the freshmen, I love watching it,” deBerardinis added. “It helps us iron out the kinks. Today might’ve looked like a great scrimmage to the average person, but there’s always work to do.”
Six transfers highlight the incoming recruiting class
A key strength of this year’s squad stems from that competition and is the depth found at every position. The addition of a talented—and in the case of the six transfers, experienced—recruiting class along with offseason strides made by the returning core puts Stawski and the coaching staff in a position where multiple options at each position are available at their disposal. It is a valuable component to have, especially through three-game conference weekends in a league that promises to be tough throughout.
“I said we’ll be better at every position on February 1 than we were a year ago,” Stawski noted. “And we are. Whether it is a new guy that has come in to take that spot or a returner that got his game better.
“We are going to rely on a mix of both and the depth is also a mixture. We’re going to have some new guys that are going to be first or second off the bench and we’re going to have some guys who have played in big games for us coming off the bench. We’re pretty balanced all the way around.”
Riley Bender is one of those transfers who figures to have a probable chance at making an impact right away. An infielder from Division I Abilene Christian, Bender led the state in home runs during his senior year of high school, and saw action in 19 contests over two years in Abilene. With a 6-foot-3, 205-pound frame and a strong arm from his regular spot at third base, Bender’s excitement for his UMHB debut is notable.
“It’s a great group of guys,” Bender said. “There’s a strong core of leadership of older guys. They really pour into me and make me feel at home. I love it.”
As far as the process of getting the newcomers acquainted with the standards and day-to-day expectations, Stawski noted that there are certainly learning curves, especially for the transfers who have already been part of one college program. However, the commitment from that group in particular has made the transition more seamless. Romen Filla (North Lake JC), Jayden Chatman (Frank Phillips College), Chris Perez (Frank Phillips College), Cameron Talburt (Eastern Okla. State CC), Weston Dean (Angelina JC), and Bender (Abilene Christian) make up the group of incoming transfers.
“Both of those groups give every coach angst. The freshmen come in, they barely know where their classes are, they have to figure out all the rules of the team and the standards and expectations.
“Then the transfers come in, and they’re coming in with a completely different mindset. It’s a different coaching staff. So we get here, and we have to have a balance of not changing their game but also making sure their game adapts to what we do on a daily basis.
“The guys that transferred in, they’re bought in and really like what we do. And they’re here for a reason. Some of those guys could’ve played at a bigger school and they’re here for a reason. They’ve adapted to our style and they’ve adapted to what we do and honestly have been some of the best bright spots from what we’ve had not only on the field, but off the field as well.
A quick look at the pitching
There were questions entering the spring as to the depth and strength of the pitching staff, but as the preseason has progressed, the ceiling for this group seems to have increased. UMHB brings back all four of its top arms from the 2023 season in Bryce Farlander, Nicklas Fenner, Andrew Acierni, and Rahul Champaneri. That is in addition to James McGlumphy, who had several strong outings as a freshman last season, and as a unit, the pitching staff has meshed well under Stawski’s guidance.
“As you can see, our pitchers have thrown 10 innings and given up two runs,” Stawski said midway through a recent scrimmage. “That’s nothing against our hitters. Our pitchers have worked really hard, and I’ve spent more time with the pitching staff over the last five weeks than I have since I’ve been here.
“I trust our hitting coaches so much that I don’t need to be out there with the hitters as much as I have been in the past, especially with 13 seniors. So I’ve spent a lot of time with these arms. We’ve changed some philosophies and foundational stuff to tailor-more to what we have and I think that has really helped.”
Acierni comes off a 2023 season in which he posted a 4.24 ERA in 10 starts with a 35-to-9 strikeout-to-walk ratio, and led the team in innings pitched (51.0). He also noted the depth on the pitching staff, and
“I feel like we have a pretty good staff this year,” Acierni, who is in his third season with the program, said. “We have three older guys who will be our main starters, I think we have some great talent coming in with the freshmen, and I think our sophomores are going to be huge this year. I think as long as our pitching staff allows our offense to be big, we’re going to win a lot of games this year.”
From an individual standpoint, Acierni noted that he made sure he stayed healthy through the offseason as he focused towards his senior year, and also took plenty of time to work on refining his mental approach to pitching.
“I really focused on my mental game this year,” Acierni said. “We worked a lot with Coach Wilson on having positive thoughts and knowing that statistically, the pitcher always has the advantage. So you just have to trust your odds.”
Looking towards the season opener
Austin College makes the trip south to Belton for UMHB’s opening weekend series, which begins with a 6 p.m. first pitch on Friday, followed by a 12 p.m. doubleheader Saturday at Red Murff Field, and like The Cru, this weekend marks AC’s first games of 2024.
The ‘Roos come off a 6-31 campaign in 2023, but bring back seven of their top eight hitters who recorded at least 17 hits last season.
“We were definitely blessed by getting the opportunity to play so many young guys the past two years,” AC head coach Shawn Counts said at the SCAC Media Days on Tuesday. “So going into this season, they have more at-bats than your average sophomores or juniors normally would…It’s definitely going to put us in a positive direction moving forwards.”
From a UMHB standpoint, The Cru is 12-3 against AC going back to 2000 and this weekend marks the second time they face off in Belton within the last three seasons. UMHB swept a mid-March series in 2022. More than anything, this season-opening series marks the turning of a page as 2024 officially gets underway.
Then comes the conference opener on Feb. 23-24 in Belton, as UMHB hosts a stout Concordia (TX) team whose lineup is lined up to be one of the ASC’s best in 2024. In what will be a competitive ASC title race—the final year in which McMurry, Ozarks, and Concordia are part of the league—Stawski and his team are excited to embrace the challenge ahead.
“ETBU is going to be one of the top teams in the country, we know that,” Stawski said. “Hardin-Simmons is going to be really good. Concordia brought back eight position player starters to its lineup.
“That’s the fun thing about this conference. I’ve said it since I moved here. You have to coach every game. If you don’t play well in this league, you will lose. That’s one of the things that we try to preach to the guys; we have to keep playing well. Do what we do. If we play to our expectations and standards, we’ll probably beat a lot of teams. But if we don’t play at that level, we’ll get beat too. That’s been the focus all year. Yeah, it’s a tough league, but that’s why it’s exciting.”
