Mastering routine focus entering game week
2/15/2016 1:57:00 PM | Baseball
If you spend enough time around the Sam Houston State baseball program, it likely will not be long until you hear the phrase 'master the routine' from second-year head coach Matt Deggs.
As the Bearkats enter game week, the routine starts over. A routine the program has hit hard during what Deggs refers to as the 'spring training' period, all ultimately in preparation for the 56-game season which begins 6:30 p.m. Friday at Louisiana-Lafayette.
“You establish a routine in how you practice, how you prepare and during the season, which is where we're headed,” Deggs said. “It's important for us to maintain those routines and ultimately master those routines because there is a certain level of comfort and confidence when you can master a routine and feel good about it.”
For Deggs, his philosophies are a combination of 20 years in coaching including stints with some of the game's most successful coaches like former Boston Red Sox manager Butch Hobson and current college head coaches Dave Van Horn (Arkansas), Rob Childress (Texas A&M) and Tony Robichaux (Louisiana-Lafayette).
“You take a little bit of everything and you mix it with your own ideas and own styles of leadership,” Deggs said. “Rob is very organized and always on task. Dave had the ability to create great energy and competition in practice. Coach Robichaux was a master teacher and motivator. Butch was old school and was a player's guy and was going to back everyone up. You get the best of everything in working with those guys.”
After reaching the championship game of the Southland Conference Tournament as the No. 5 seed a season ago, the Kats fell to Houston Baptist, missing out on a fourth straight NCAA Tournament appearance.
“There's as a built-in level of expectations when you arrive,” Deggs said. “The kids know it and the coaches know it. That expectations is championships and I wouldn't want it any other way. The trick is doing it with 26 new guys and then molding our culture and continuing on the foundation that has been set here before us then one day taking that next step.”
While the tone is set with the coaching staff, redshirt junior Lance Miles, who is contending for a starting position after sitting out a season following his transfer from Kansas State, says it is up to the players to ensure it is enforced.
“He does a lot of things that are very methodical and very smart,” Miles said. “If we master his routine and then take it under our own wing as older guys, coach Deggs can set the tone and as players, we can make sure it's an everyday thing. When people come to play us, we want to be associated with those things.”
After three games at the Ragin' Cajuns this weekend, Sam Houston returns to Don Sanders Stadium for the home opener on Tuesday against UTSA (6:30) followed by a Wednesday night tilt against No. 25 Texas Tech (6:30 p.m.) and three games against No. 21 Oklahoma.
“We might be called the underdog for the first 14 games of the year but I think that plays into our advantage,” Miles said. “Most of us have probably been the underdog our whole life. I know I embrace that role and I think this team is starting to understand we want people to doubt us and think we have our work cut out for us. We are putting the work in to hang with them and beat them to get off to a good start.”
