Donica delivers, Kats gain game-like experience
2/6/2016 3:57:00 PM | Baseball
Continue to Build Champions
Become a Bearkat Champion Now
For the first time this spring, it felt like a game day at Don Sanders Stadium.
Two weekends removed from Opening Day at Louisiana-Lafayette, Sam Houston State baseball laced up its uniforms and welcomed a crowd of around 200 fans in an environment that featured walk-up music, in-game promotions and an overall feeling that baseball is back.
“We've been doing this for years,” second-year head coach Matt Deggs said. “It's our game day walkthrough and I think it's real important from a standpoint that you're not overwhelmed because you put on a shiny new uniform. Baseball is one of the only sports too where you work on a strict timeline with a lot of other staff from a promotions and marketing standpoint.”
While official stats were not kept, Team Tough outlasted Team Attitude, 5-1, led by six scoreless innings from right-handed pitcher Heath Donica.
“He was really sinking the ball today after the first inning,” Deggs said. “Coach (Jay) Sirianni made an adjustment to get him a little more online. He did a good job locating his slider and changeup. He went out and attacked with his fastball and forced a lot of bad contact to keep them off contact.
The junior, who transferred to Sam Houston following one year with Navarro Junior College where he was named conference pitcher of the year, says he was pleased to bounce back after a difficult outing in his last simulated start.
“We talked all week about being able to respond, come back and fight,” Donica said. “The thing that got me last time was my fastball was up in the zone quite a bit and I am a sinker and slider guy. Today, I really focused on keeping the ball down on the zone. There were a lot of weak ground ball outs.”
Senior Spence Rahm put Team Tough ahead 1-0 with a first-pitch solo home run over the right center field wall in the top of the second. The Third-Team All-Southland Conference honoree from a season ago also came on to pitch the ninth.
“I was pleased with what I saw out of the bullpen, especially with Spence (Rahm) being able to come in and finish it at the end,” Deggs said. “He has a big arm and is able to throw strikes as well with three pitches. That was good to see.”
Junior Robie Rojas drove home a run in the third and later, brought in junior Matt Broadbent from first base on a hit-and-run on a liner to right center.
“We want to prepare for every situation and it was good to see Robie execute in a situation like that to get that run and finish a team,” Deggs said. “We had our closer coming out of the bullpen and we needed to add another run. We're going to play the game aggressively right there.”
According to Rojas, who is among 10 incoming transfers for Sam Houston after spending time at Blinn College and Oklahoma State, today's game and experience was extremely valuable for some of the younger players.
“We stick together no matter what,” Rojas said. “We have a lot of freshmen who have never really seen a game day for a Division I school. It was good to get our feet wet, put on the jersey and play in front of some fans.”
Senior Hayden Nixon, who opposed Donica on the mound, earned a quality start in seven innings. Of note offensively, freshman Riley McKnight added an RBI, scoring Rojas in the third and senior Miles Manning was successful in executing a sacrifice bunt to score a run.
“I think we on purpose tried to lay down more bunts than we normally would,” Deggs said. “On days like today, those are very important. It's cold and you have the wind blowing in your face but you've got to execute. If we plan on competing with some bigger teams we have to execute on command.”
With the home opener two weeks from Tuesday (Feb. 23), season tickets ($99 general admission/$200 reserved) and single-game seats are currently on sale by calling (936) 294-1729 or visiting GoBearkats.com. Single-game tickets are $8 reserved and $6 general admission for all games except the Oklahoma series ($12/$10) and Texas Tech/Rice matchups ($10/$8).
