The cliché is one of the most used in all of collegiate sports. Coaches tell their players the start of a conference season is a rebirth. The first game against familiar opponents can embark a team down the road to erasing the nausea of an unimpressive nonconference record.
This season, those words are becoming common to the Cal Poly baseball team. As the season goes on, the Mustangs hope to become living examples of this slogan.
With a series win over UC Riverside now under their belt, it is starting to look more and more like it.
Fueled by a 10th inning, walk-off double by catcher Jordan Hadlock, the Mustangs defeated UC Riverside 4-3 Sunday afternoon at Baggett Stadium.
“It’s really been about starting over,” Hadlock said. “We have to win as many conference games as we can. Hopefully, if we win this conference season we’ll get into the postseason.”
Hadlock was inserted into the game in the bottom of the 10th inning, to pinch hit for Matt Russell. UC Riverside had just taken a slim 3-2 lead and the Mustangs were looking for an answer. They got it from Hadlock. With the bases loaded, and one away, he took a fastball to the right center gap to bring in right fielder Mitch Haniger and pinch runner Jono Grayson.
“It was nice to have Hadlock clutch up with a no doubter,” head coach Larry Lee said. “It’s what we needed.”
It may have been what Hadlock needed as well.
Hadlock has had his share of ups and downs in his Cal Poly career. After bursting on to the scene last season with an 11-game hitting streak, it looked like he would sure up the starting job as the team’s every day catcher. But, he started to split time with Elliot Stewart down the stretch, and never grabbed a consistent spot in the lineup.
From there, it was a game of catch up. Stewart came out this year as the Mustangs’ opening day catcher, leaving Hadlock to be utilized sparingly in pinch hit situations.
A big hit, like the one Sunday afternoon, may be exactly what he needs to get back on track.
“I’ve been struggling this season, as far as results, and my average isn’t as high as I want it to be,” Hadlock said. “But you can’t drag those last at bats into where you are at now. It’s about this pitch and this at bat.”
For the Mustangs, like Hadlock, Sunday in particular was about putting things behind them. Determined to rid themselves of the 8-12 nonconference record they put together to start the season, the Mustangs came out with tons of effort.
Center fielder Bobby Crocker beat out a close throw by a diving infielder in the fifth, catcher Chris Hoo gunned out a runner heading to third in the third and Crocker then laid out for a diving grab in the sixth.
“It’s good to win a conference series, and I mean today’s game was what it is like to play in the Big West,” Lee said. “Most games are barnburners and very tightly contested games and not a lot of runs scored.”
The Mustangs and Highlanders exchanged runs in the first inning. After UC Riverside’s Tony Nix rocked a RBI double to dead center, shortstop Mike Miller brought home Crocker on a sacrifice fly.
UC Riverside made it 2-1 in the fifth, but Cal Poly answered with a Chris Hoo RBI double.
In the 10th inning, UC Riverside brought a run across on a squeeze play to make it 3-2. The run was the second earned run relief pitcher Jeff Johnson has surrendered all season.
“I didn’t have my best stuff,” Johnson said. “I just tried to throw as many zeros up on the board. That was disappointing but after that you just have to flush it and try to keep (the deficit) to one.”
This gives the Mustangs a win in their Big West opening series. And with Cal State Fullerton and UC Irvine forming a stranglehold on the top of the conference over the last couple of seasons, it gives the Mustangs some much needed momentum.
Still, Cal Poly’s nonconference record will continue to be a blemish on the stat sheet. But that will mean nothing if Cal Poly can turn this series win in to a run in what may be one of the best baseball conferences on the West Coast.
“Most winning teams are able to win a one run ball game early in the season or win an extra inning ballgame early in the season,” Lee said. “It took us a while to accomplish that, but to be able to do that in a conference setting is more valuable. Now we have a feeling of what we can accomplish.”