Baseball Bulldogs Set for Stretch Run

"It was just having fun," said Infielder Garrett Weber. "We were out there -- we weren't pressing and stuff. We were going out there and beating people with ease."

"If we play like that then we'll be tough to beat," said Outfielder Dusty Robinson. "Everybody doing their job, their exact part for the team. It's gonna be tough to beat us if we do that."

But then the calendar switched to April, and so did the Diamond Dogs' on-field fortunes.

"We got away from our plan a little bit maybe," Robinson said. "We weren't as humble. That happens to a team. You can't go out and win every game. If you could you'd be number one in the nation and win a national championship every year."

Uncharacteristic fielding mistakes and late inning pitching collapses led to a 10-7 month. That's not bad on paper, but not up to Fresno State's standards this season.

"You know everybody hits a funk. We hit ours and it's how you bounce back. You can't dwell on that too much."

"When you start out 20-3 you're not gonna go 40-6, you're not gonna go 60-8," said Head Coach Mike Batesole. "You know the bumps in the road are out there. We know they're out there. We talked about it. We knew they were out there and we hit them."

And now entering the final month of regular season play, the Bulldogs still have their sights set on hosting an NCAA Regional. But it will take another hot streak to catch the NCAA Seeding Committee's eye.

"If the season ended today I'd say no we wouldn't," Coach Batesole said. "But if we go down and get it done next week on the road again and we end up putting ourselves in the position where we do win the league and the tournament now, we're probably be in the position where we have to do both of those, we'll probably be back and have a chance."

For these Diamond Dogs, the road back to Omaha starts Friday night on the road at Louisiana Tech.