Cougars challenged right off the bat
By Brenda L. Shelkey
The weather has been the biggest challenge this year for most baseball teams. The Cougars haven’t had a chance to get outside, let alone get out on the diamond to practice. That made their first game against MLS-G a bit of a shock to their system. The Mavericks reared their ugly heads and took both games 11-0 and 4-2. Head Coach AnDrew Zurcher said, "The first game was us basically getting our feet wet. We were outside for only the second time all year and our first time on a baseball field." The players were seeing live pitches for the first time according to Zurcher and they didn’t get comfortable hitting until the second game. He said, "We made some key mistakes defensively which resulted in us giving up some extra runs." The Cougar outfield got some bad jumps on the ball and weren’t able to make plays that Zurcher is hoping will become more routine as the season progresses. Junior Ryan Rauhauser struggled to throw strikes at certain times and let a few innings get away from him. "He walked too many batters and threw a couple wild pitches that resulted in runs," said Zurcher. "But he did a nice job considering it was our first game. He kept calm and finished strong."
