The Cougars have NCAA hopes in 2014 with a solid core of returners. | Caitlin Hilton/The Daily Cougar
The man behind the podium looked less like he was involved with baseball and more like he was a politician about to deliver a quality stump speech. The wares he’s selling aren’t the normal things he has discussed in recent press tours, but he feels they will be equally important to him and his team’s hopeful campaign to Omaha.
Aside from the new field, which has been the main point, head coach Todd Whitting likes other elements of the team. Not since 2010 has UH had more returners than newcomers.
“Eighteen-plus years of coaching college baseball and I’ve never had a team that returns every offensive starter,” Whitting said. “We have back all nine of the guys who started for us, plus you have (senior first baseman) Casey Grayson and (senior utility player) Jacob Lueneberg coming back off of a medical redshirt.”
The nine spots that compose the lineup were somewhat limited last season with the loss of Grayson and Lueneberg, who would have hit third and fifth respectively, but they allowed the coaching staff to discover the talents of players like sophomore third baseman Justin Montemayor, who hit .329 and was a Freshman All-American.
From a batter’s-box point of view, the speed of the new field is certainly a plus, but it still takes quality swings of the bat to score.
“We have a team mindset of ‘get your pitch.’ We go out there looking for your pitch, and if they don’t throw it to you, you just try and take the base and go from there,” Montemayor said.
Grayson, who is slated to start at first base, was quick to point out the practice and routines that he and his teammates have been going through to keep their eyes and bats sharp.
“We do drills every day. We intersquad two to three times a week to get some reps off of live pitching, and we take hacks off the machine and tee-work,” Grayson said. “We just do all kinds of stuff to make sure we’re ready for opening day on Friday.”
Montemayor echoed the feelings of Grayson, whom he replaced at first before being moved to third.
“I feel great right now. The coaches are working with me and everybody else, and I think we’re hitting really well as a team right now.”
Despite the focus on the art of hitting .300, it was noted that the team’s speed also opened up more opportunities for the batters.
“We can bunt and run, hit and run. Instead of having to bunt certain guys over, they can steal the bag, and from there we can bunt them to third,” Grayson said.
