Salukis travel south for first eight games

Salukis travel south for first eight games

By Aaron Graff

Cold weather has denied the Saluki baseball team as much practice time on the new field as they would like, however, the season must start as scheduled.

The Salukis have their first games of the season this weekend at Western Kentucky University.

Coach Ken Henderson said he has a good idea about the majority of the lineup, but some spots are still up for grabs. The team has five outfielders on the roster and they will all get opportunities to play. The team has a few different options at third base as well. Henderson said the players who play well will earn those spots.

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“We have some battles going on,” Henderson said. “It’s a good thing, we have depth.”

Henderson said seniors Ryan Casillas, Cody Daily, Matt Jones and Jake Welch will get a lot of playing time, but there are still early questions to answer.

Welch was named the All-MVC preseason shortstop.

Southern Illinois weather has been a burden for the Salukis. Henderson said he wanted to practice on the field as much as possible in the allotted time. The team has had multiple practices at the Garden Grove Event Center during the past three weeks.

“Our kids have done a tremendous job of staying positive and doing everything we’ve asked them to do inside,” Henderson said.

The forecast in Bowling Green, Ky., is a high of 46 degrees and a low of 23 degrees for the upcoming weekend with a 40 percent chance of precipitation Friday.

“It’s going to be a cold one,” Jones said.

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Jones had a .310 batting average last season and said this group works together better than last years.

“The chemistry is pretty good,” Jones said. “Everyone gets along, which is different from last year. We were kind of cliquey.”

Henderson said he goes into every game expecting to win, but at this point in the season nobody knows anything about their opponents. He said for now the team needs to focus on throwing strikes, battling at the plate and making every routine play.

This weekend’s starting pitchers will be senior Todd Eaton, junior Sam Coonrod and junior Aaron Hauge. Pitching coach P.J. Finigan said they give the team the best chance to win because they are upper classmen.

“We should hit the ground running,” Finigan said. “I don’t think there should be any growing pains.”

Eaton has not been a starting pitcher since his freshman season. He has served as the team’s closer the past two seasons, and was a Second-Team All MVC relief pitcher both years. Coonrod was named one of the top 50 junior prospects in the nation by Baseball America.

The team’s first eight games of the season will be on the road. Henderson said it would be challenging, since the team only got to practice on the field roughly eight times. He said they probably would not have been able to practice on last year’s field at all at this time.

The Salukis have 15 freshmen on their roster, including Jake Hand, who will be a backup for Jones this season.

“(Jones) is a genius,” Hand said. “He’s so smart, he plays the game right, and it’s really nice being able to come in behind a guy like that to learn from him going forward.”

Hand said the freshmen on the team had become best friends by the end of the first weekend at SIU, and he’s looking forward to the next four years with them.

“We all live on the same floor together,” Hand said. “The first week we were here, it felt like I was here for a month.”

For live updates of the games follow @DEsalukis on twitter.

Aaron Graff can be contacted at [email protected], on Twitter @Aarongraff_DE or 536-3311 ext. 269.

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