Fresno State shocked the baseball world last year when they rode a wave of momentum to a national championship.
Early in the 2009 campaign, the Cal Poly baseball team looks like they now have the momentum following three consecutive victories over top-notch competition.
The Mustangs (3-1) swept then-No. 3 Rice in a doubleheader Saturday then defeated defending national champions Fresno State Tuesday night in a game that marked the team’s resilient nature.
“We proved that we can come back,” said senior outfielder Ryan Lee.
Indeed they did, when they overcame 4-1 and 11-9 deficits against the defending champs 13-11 in Fresno in what turned out to be a hitter’s paradise.
Lee punished the Fresno State pitching staff, grabbing two hits and scoring three runs for the Mustangs.
“To go to their place and come out with a win, that’s big for our program,” he said.
Junior catcher Wes Dorrell and freshman outfielder Bobby Crocker contributed three-run home runs Tuesday night to improve the Mustangs 3-1.
Dorrell noted that the freshmen this year came in with exorbitant confidence, adding a much-needed boost to the team.
His teammates agreed.
“The way they were playing, you wouldn’t know they were freshmen,” infielder Kyle Smith said.
The Mustangs face another non-conference foe when they host Sacramento State on Friday at Bagget Stadium and Lee said the team isn’t taking the Hornets lightly after beating two prominent teams like Rice and Fresno State.
“Wins like that give us a lot of confidence early in the season, but we can’t get over confident,” Lee said.
In their final contest against Rice, the Mustangs came from behind to pull off the 7-6 win over the Owls.
Lee was quick to point out that wins against high competition aren’t meaningful if the Mustangs cannot defeat the teams they are supposed to.
“Wins against (Rice and Fresno State) don’t mean anything if we can’t win these games,” he added.
The Hornets went 24-34 last season, a record similar to the Mustangs, who finished 24-32 a year ago.
Smith said that the team wouldn’t take a team’s record from a year ago into the equation, knowing how much different his own team is this season.
“Last year we sort of fell off, but this season we’re playing to win as opposed to we’re playing not to lose,” he said.
Members of the team credited the surge in confidence prior to the season to the preseason preparation and were quick to point out that anything can happen.
“In baseball, a team can lose to any given team,” Smith said. “Fresno State has always been a solid team.”
Fresno State surprised many last year to win the series over the Georgia Bulldogs.
Their opponents thus far have been top-25 teams; Rice has won 13 consecutive conference titles, made College World Series appearances the past three years and won the 2003 national championship.
With wins over that kind of competition early in the year, confidence is high for the Mustangs who now know they can compete with the elite programs in the country.
“From what we saw with Fresno State, I can see us doing that,” Dorrell said.