By SPENCER BATES
SALAMANCA — The Salamanca baseball team fell in a 10-0 five-inning shutout to Southwestern at home, its sixth consecutive CCAA Div. I loss, and one that has the Warriors searching for confidence.
After having started the season with seven consecutive wins, five via non-league opponents and two over Allegany-Limestone, the Warriors were riding high. However, since those victories over the Gators — the most recent of the two coming on April 22 — life in the league has been hard on them.
Including the most recent loss to the Trojans, Salamanca is now 1-6 over its last seven games, the lone win coming against non-league Cuba-Rushford. And according to Salamanca coach Greg Herrick, the entirety of the problem is not due to a disparity in skill level between his side and others, a good amount of the issue comes from a lack of confidence and willingness to compete.
“We concentrated a lot on just being competitors, that’s the thing I think we’re missing,” Herrick said. “We can’t change how much time we’ve invested in the offseason, but I’m concerned with the level of competitiveness out of some of the younger guys. … This school has won recently in a lot of different sports because they had the right attitude and the right compete level. We have to start there, we have to just embrace that a little bit more. Confidence, I still believe, is an issue, because guys haven’t put enough time into building their skills, so I don’t think they’re confident when they go up against a team that has spent more time on the diamond than them. … We’ll go back to work at practice tomorrow, but that’s going to be a slower process. What can help us immediately is mindset, compete level and confidence.”
And whatever level of confidence the Warriors had entering the game against the Trojans was knocked down even farther after a number of mistakes were made that could have led to footholds, including getting picked off on the basepaths twice. In a game that was set to be a close one on the mound, Herrick knew his team needed to find an edge with their baserunning, unfortunately lapses in focus cost them prime opportunities.
“We knew we were up against their number one pitcher, we knew we had our guy on the mound, so we wanted to keep it as tight as possible,” Herrick said. “So, there were opportunities to get runners over and play a little small ball, which is our style anyways, and then we just wiped ourselves out off the bases. That’s a huge turn of events for us. We got the benefit of a leadoff the one time we stole second, that was good execution, and then we just wiped out all that good with one pick-off. So, it’s huge, the morale just changes.”
Salamanca’s Jacob Herrick connects on a pitch against Southwestern. (Spencer Bates)
The Warriors’ struggles with confidence have not been a one-size-fits-all problem. Herrick admitted, while the top of the lineup — which mainly consists of experienced, veteran players — may not show as many signs of being rattled, the bottom of the lineup gets shaken far too easily.
The only two hits Salamanca managed to record against the Trojans came from Cory Holleran and Zach Trietley, two top-of-the-lineup guys.
“We’ve talked about how the lineup’s got to get deeper,” Herrick said. “We had some good at-bats from our top guys, then we just couldn’t execute with the small ball. We called a couple bunts, couldn’t execute. We got down in the count, and against this good pitcher, that’s a no-no, giving away strikes and not commanding the strike zone. So that’s been a recurring problem. We just got to fix it.”
Salamanca currently sits in fifth place in the CCAA Div. I, one place above last. And as the regular season begins to wind down, with only two league games left for the Warriors — home and away fixtures against Olean — the message Herrick has delivered to his players is one of pride and responsibility.
“They should be playing for their seniors at this time of the year,” Herrick said. “There’s some really good seniors here that have devoted the right amount of time to the game, given up their summers, played year-round, played on travel teams, they’ve got a heavy investment. So I said, ‘You guys have a responsibility to finish out the season. No matter how we’ve done in this six-game stretch, you have a responsibility to your teammates that have put the proper amount of time in to keep fighting for them and do whatever you can.’ And I think the quickest improvement can be confidence and just a feeling that they belong. … So, we got to do a better job of coaching that part of the game, the mental part, and hopefully we’ll get something to click.”
Salamanca’s next chance at righting the ship will come on May 16 at home when they take on Olean at 5 p.m. for its penultimate league game of the year.
AT SALAMANCA
R H E
Southwestern 012 07X X 10 12 1
Salamanca 000 00X X 0 2 3
SW: W. Genareo (6 SO, 0 BB) and Marshall
Sala: Holleran (5 SO, 4 BB), Herrick (0 SO, 0 BB) and Bradley
