ABILENE -- For three years running, the ACU Wildcats have reached the Lone Star Conference Post-Season Tournament title game only to see those championship dreams go up in smoke.
Whether it be a doubleheader loss to Angelo State in 2007 that kept the Wildcats out of the regional tournament or a blown ninth-inning lead in 2008 against sixth-seeded Texas A&M-Kingsville in the championship game, the Wildcats just haven't been able to get over the hump of late in some of their biggest games of the season.
Now, this isn't a team, mind you, that's trying to drag itself out of a hole that's seen it lose 30 or 40 games in a season like some of the teams it plays in its own conference.
The Wildcats have been one of the nation's top teams since 1996. But something's been missing the last few years, and head coach
Britt Bonneau and assistant coach
Brandon Stover know it.
"We've lacked some intensity the last few years, and I believe that's hurt us in some big ballgames," Bonneau said. "We made a point to go get some players that would bring us more intensity and fire. It doesn't mean that we haven't had guys who've had that, but you can never have enough guys with that type of attitude. I want guys who aren't afraid to get dirty and show some controlled emotion when needed."
The Wildcats have several of those type players returning in senior catcher
Jordan Schmitt, senior centerfielder
Thomas Bumpass, junior shortstop
Willie Uechi and sophomore third baseman/pitcher
Cameron Watten.
Those are the only four returning everyday starters on this year's team, but it's a core group that Bonneau feels good about going into the season.
"We're very fortunate to have a core of position players returning that are the backbone of our team," Bonneau said. "Those guys have been in the program for a few years now, and those guys are our strength. We'll be relying on some new faces that we brought in to surround those guys, but those four guys are the guys we're going to rely on to get us going every day."
Schmitt is closing in on several LSC and ACU career records, and if he breaks them, they might not last very long because Uechi is on pace to break the existing records as well.
Schmitt has played in 166 games the last three years with 161 starts and is one of the four core members that Bonneau has built this team around.
"I can't think of a better leader for this team than Jordan," Bonneau said. "He's a guy who plays the game hard and is a great guy to have controlling the game from behind the plate. We know what we're going to get from him every day and we know that he's going to be there when we need him."
Uechi might well be one of the grittiest players to ever wear the Wildcat uniform. He's started all 121 ACU games over his first two seasons (60 in 2007 and 61 in 2008) with the Wildcats piling up 91 wins during those two seasons.
"He (Uechi) plays the game the way it's supposed to be played," Bonneau said. "He knows the game isn't bigger than him and he gives the game everything he can, and that rubs off on everyone else. The guy doesn't slump when it comes to playing the game the right way, and that's why he'll be in the lineup every day. To have a shortstop you can count on is huge for us, and we're very fortunate to have him here."
Bumpass burst on the scene last year with the best season of his career. He moved to center field midway through the season and will start there from the outset in 2009.
"I'm really looking forward to watching him play a full season in one position," Bonneau said. "He'll do a great job as our leadoff hitter, and we'll really try to use his speed on the bases. He's a guy like we've had in the past with (Marc) Thompson and (Matt) Spotanski in that if he can get things going for us at the top of the lineup, we've got guys who can drive him in."
Watten will be the Wildcats' everyday third baseman, but, like his older brother before him (Trey, who was drafted last year in the seventh round by Milwaukee), he will also be on the mound each weekend.
"He had a great senior year on the mound, but we didn't really need him there last year," Bonneau said of a team that featured a 13-game winner, a 10-game winner and an 8-game winner. "He'll also hit in the middle of our lineup and play third and I know we'll get great production out of him."
Among the top newcomers to the team are second baseman
Chris Hall, a Cooper graduate and transfer from Texas Tech; first baseman Brett Bochsler; and outfielders
Ruben Perez and
Travis Latz. Hall started 95 games at shortstop in 2007 and 2008 for the Red Raiders, while Bochsler was a redshirt freshman on the 2006 Oregon State team that won the first of back-to-back NCAA Division I College World Series championships.
Hall and Uechi could form the best middle-infield lineup the Wildcats have ever fielded, and that's saying something. But with Schmitt behind the plate, Hall and Uechi serving as the double-play combo and Bumpass in center, the Wildcats solid up the middle.
"We're looking at one of the best middle-infield duos we've had since I've been here with the addition of
Chris Hall," Bonneau said. "Chris plays the game exactly the way I like kids to play the game. He's a gamer and a great player. He just wants to put on the uniform and go out and play, and he's got another guy at shortstop (Uechi) who's exactly like that. That's the intensity that I'm talking about that I want to see from our guys every time they hit the field."
Bochsler, Latz and Perez could also be high-impact players at the plate and in the field.
"I'm really excited about Bochsler," Bonneau said. "At first base he's got great ability with the glove. And he's got a classic left-handed swing at the plate. He's got experience at different levels and he's been on the national stage.
"Latz is a big right-handed hitter who put up some great numbers at the junior college level, and we need him to be that kind of force for us," he said. "He's a great competitor who hates to fail and loves to win. He brings that intensity that I love and want on the field, in the dugout and in the clubhouse.
"Perez is the same way," Bonneau said. "He really knows the strike zone and does a good job of working counts. He's a guy who will be in the middle of our lineup with a chance to drive in a lot of runs with the speed we'll have at the top."
Without a doubt, ACU's biggest question mark entering the season is the lack of experience on the pitching staff. The Wildcats lost the two winningest pitchers in school history in
Ben Maynard (33 wins) and
Chris Wiman (32 wins) and a pitcher in
Trey Watten who had 20 wins over the last two years.
The Wildcats' returning pitchers ?
Preston Vancil,
Matt Sullivan,
Kevin Justice,
Kyle Korbal and
Jordan Gibbons ? have a combined career record of 12-7. Vancil and Sullivan are penciled into the starting rotation for now with transfer
Cooper Page, Justice and
Cameron Watten battling for the other two weekend spots.
Transfer
Brad Rutherford will be the Wildcats' closer, and Bonneau likes the energy and experience he brings to that role.
"We're obviously inexperienced on the mound and that's a concern," Bonneau said. "We're going to have to learn our pitching staff really quickly. Hopefully they'll develop the way I think they can over the course of the first couple of months because that will determine if we're going to participate in post-season play.
"What we don't have is a true No. 1 guy that when you give him the ball you know you're going to win," he said. "What we have are some quality arms that will give us an opportunity to win. We just don't have a lot of experience entering the season, but we have quality pitchers we feel like can go out and get the job done."
The Wildcats should be jumbled with Angelo State,Central Oklahoma, Cameron and Southeastern Oklahoma State competing for the LSC championship. Whoever makes it out of the LSC and into the regional will find a different lineup of teams awaiting.
The NCAA re-aligned the regions after last season, so no longer will ACU have to go through Delta State (Miss.) to get to the NCAA Division II College World Series.
The task, however, doesn't get much easier as the Gulf South Conference was dropped from the South Central Region in favor of the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association, which features perennial powerhouses Central Missouri, Nebraska-Omaha and Emporia State.
"It's exciting to start a new year with potential new rivalries," Bonneau said. "We had a great rivalry with Delta State, and I hope we'll develop that same type of rivalry with the new teams we'll be playing in the regular season and regional tournaments. The first thing we have to do, though, is worry about these first four months and the rest will take care of itself."
