Searching for the Ultimate Answer

It's been a week since our last update and, to be honest, I still don't know where to begin when it comes to our 7-4 loss to EDS last Tuesday, March 13.

Before our practice Monday afternoon at Eisenhower, I was in the batting cage throwing BP to my son, Jake, when Carson Simmons' dad, Joel, came over and struck up a conversation about the state of our team.

Joel asked me if I had figured out the reasons for our loss to EDS. I rattled off several thoughts, but I honestly couldn't give a definitive answer, even though I've spent a whole lot of time over the past week analyzing the game and thinking about the things we could have done differently.

If this were any other year and any other team, losing one game early in the season wouldn't have hurt so much. And it certainly wouldn't have been something to stew about for a whole week.

But, once again, this 2007 St. Mary's team isn't an ordinary bunch. The potential is there for something very special with this team. Something extraordinary.

For whatever the reason, though, extraordinary didn't show up to play EDS last Tuesday afternoon.

Maybe we all were too cocky. Maybe we thought we would just show up and go through the motions and win that game on talent alone.

As a team, we've talked over and over again about not being overconfident, about not taking anything for granted, especially after our mini-collapse for three innings against Tutt.

But to anyone who's asked the question "What Happened?" with the EDS game, I've told them all the same thing. From the moment the players started arriving at the ballpark for our pregame last Tuesday, I knew it in my heart. We were flat. We did not show up at the field with a sense of urgency. It was crystal clear once we took our pregame infield. We were sloppy and simply did not look like we were ready to play an important ballgame.

I had a sick feeling in my gut that we were going to lose that game. Unfortunately, my instincts were correct.

From the first pitch, EDS outplayed us. No, they don't come close to matching up with us talent-wise. But talent alone doesn't win ballgames. Tuesday was proof of that.

We got solid pitching from Palmer Douglas, Alec Anderson and Denis Douglas, but made a few costly errors and had a few mental breakdowns defensively that killed us. We swung the bats well, at times, and finished with nine hits, but couldn't get the big hits in key situations. We missed several signs in key situations and made several mental mistakes on the basepaths.

On the flipside, any time EDS needed a big pitch or a big hit in a key spot, or needed a defensive play to get out of inning, they got the job done. On this day, their heart and passion beat up on our talent.

The good news is we still have a lot of baseball left to play. If we had to lose a game this year, Game 3 of the season wasn't a bad time to do it. It wasn't a bad time to get it out of the way.

But when you're as good as we are, we shouldn't accept any loss. I hope we all have learned from this setback, and it seems like our players all are committed to using the mistakes as a tool for growth. In practice over the past week, we've been able to focus in on some of the mistakes we made and make the necessary adjustments.

We still have a lot of work to do, but already, I am confident we are a better, stronger ballclub as the result of this setback.

At the start of our season, our team set five goals for ourselves. One of those goals now is unattainable as the result of the EDS loss. But the ultimate goal is still well within our reach, and I feel better than ever that our players have resolved themselves to making that final goal a reality.

Again, there is still much work to be done. And, again, there is good news. It looks like every player on our ballclub finally understands that nothing is going to be handed to us. I believe our club will come away from this setback better than ever. I truly believe the BIG TEAM LITTLE ME mentality is back.

Now, it's my job to make sure what happened Tuesday doesn't happen again.

And it's up to our players to prove BIG TEAM LITTLE ME is more than just a cute little slogan on a T-shirt.

Only then will the 2007 St. Mary's Saints find the ultimate answer we are searching for.