Ball Security

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TYLER BROWNSports Editor | @tyman4_

Despite the masses of snow outside, it is baseball season here in Maryville for Northwest.

While the Bearcats’ first home game is slated for Feb. 27, they will travel to Alva, Oklahoma, for a Friday game and a Saturday doubleheader.

Two of those three games come against Northwestern Oklahoma and the third is against Regis out of Colo-rado. It should be an evenly-matched weekend as Northwest and North-western Oklahoma finished exactly .500 last season while Regis finished five games below.

“In early season baseball, you want to go out and play well,” head coach Darin Loe said. “You want to get your feet wet a little bit. You want to throw strikes on the mound. You want to play solid defense and have quality at-bats. Obviously, we’d love to come home 3-0 but most impor-tantly, come out and play well.”

Loe said the Bearcats are bound to fare a little better against Regis, given they have dealt with some inclement weather as well. Northwestern Okla-homa, on the other hand, provides the team with a tall order.

“What we’ll do with Northwest-ern Oklahoma is we’ll take a look at their stat sheets and get some ideas on some of those guys,” Loe said. “We faced at least one of those guys last year so we have some charts on those guys. Obviously, they’re going to be a team that has been outside and been playing and practicing outside so they might have a little head start on us. They’re a good program (that is) gonna be a good test for us.”

Northwestern Oklahoma senior first basemen Jeff Martin is someone the Bearcats will need to work around, according to Loe. Martin hit .359 last season and is off to a good 2015 cam-paign hitting .462 with a home run and four RBI’s through three games.

“Everytime you go into a series, you kind of target those players that you don’t want to beat you,” Loe said.

“I think he’s certainly the guy in that lineup that they want up in a big situ-ation so our key is keeping those guys off base in front of him. Let him hit those singles and doubles with no-body on and face the guys behind them.”

Last season, Northwest had the luxury of having a workhorse at the top of the rotation in Ryker Fox. He ended his senior season with a 7-4 record, but in the last five games, he nearly put the Bearcats in the playoffs – he single handedly pitched 34 in-nings with a 2.61 ERA, winning three games down that stretch.

“You can’t replace a guy like Ryk-er,” Loe said. “He was a guy that we could give the ball to and you were pretty sure that he was going to go out there and get you a win or a least keep you in the ball game all day long.”

To start the season, senior Kole Klocko gets the nod to serve as the team ace. He finished last sea-son with 7.62 ERA while starting 9 games. Sophomore junior college transfer Anthony Caenepeel and true freshman Brad Roberts are penciled in as the teams two Saturday starters.

Senior catcher Blake Hardegree, who appeared in 37 out of a possible 46 games last season as the team’s backstop has full confidence in the new pitching staff.

“(Caenepeel is) a baller,” Hard-egree said. “He’ll come out and throw strikes. He’s got four pitches. He can throw them all for strikes. He’ll be good for us. (Roberts is) young. He’s a competitor, though.”

Not only will Northwest have to face some solid hitters this weekend, Northwestern Oklahoma had two pitchers last weekend pitch seven in-nings of scoreless baseball.

“Having the ability to get outside the last three weeks, we faced some pretty good arms of our own just on our pitching staff,” Loe said. “I think we fared pretty well. I think our line-up is kind of a unique lineup. We got guys with speed, guys that are great two-strike hitters, guys that can hit for power, hit for average.

“I think when you take a look at our lineup, matching up against top pitching whether its this weekend or against the MIAA, I think we fare pretty well.”

Sophomores Nikko Pablo and Austin Wulff hit .400 and .278 respec-tively as freshman on last year’s team. Wulff added 32 RBIs in 43 starts to go along with it. With 11 of the athletes on the roster being sophomores, Loe believes it is their year to step up and take the team to the next level.

“We had a lot of freshman last year,” Loe said. “I think right now, even though we have some really good juniors and seniors, I think the strength of our program is in the sophomore class. Those guys got playing time last year as true freshman. In center field, Garrett Fort is just a phenomenal athlete and could be the fastest guy in the league. He can really run it down in center field. Our outfield is full of freshman and sophomores. So, that’s really a young class but just tremendous talent out there.”

Loe also said he believes senior first baseman Steven Garber is the best first baseman in the league. He hit .289 with 26 RBIs last season. He is also impressed with junior transfer shortstop Nick Gotta.

Hardegree has yet to see a win-ning season, as the Bearcats have failed to produce one since the 2008 season. However, finishing 23-23 last season and one game out of the playoffs, he believes the team turned a corner last season.

“I think a lot of it is energy,” Harde-gree said. “We’ve got to bring energy to every game. There were times last year that we came into games and we were lackadaisical and we weren’t ready to play. With how our coaches have helped us this year, we’ve been getting after it. Every practice is high energy and good tempo and everything.

I think we’re right there,” Hard-egree added. “I think we’re ready to go. Everybody is super excited to start again … I guess we’ll find out Friday.”

BRANDON ZENNEREditor in Chief | @brandonzenner

The Northwest men’s basketball team commits few turnovers. The expression on the face of Head Coach Ben McCollum when he hears how well his team protects the ball sums up his philosophy on ball security.

His face lights up, his eyes get big, and he mutters, “Wow,” McCollum says. That’s because the men have the second best turnovers per game aver-age in the country.

McCollum says it comes from habit, though, and not training. As well as his team does, he never tells his squad to protect the ball.

“It just happens,” McCollum says. “I’m a big believer – and I’ve always been this way because this is how I would coach myself. I work through the positive side of things … The oth-er thing, when you do only have eight players, kids know their roles, they embrace their roles and they don’t go outside of that.

“When that happens, everybody becomes unselfish. It develops some trust amongst each other and then your turnovers naturally go down be-cause kids don’t try to do more than they can do.”

That belief of positive reinforce-ment has lead the Bearcats to an aver-age of 9.5 turnovers per game, second only to No. 6-ranked Minnesota-State Moorhead’s rate of 7.9 per game. Only four Division I programs turn the ball over less than the Bearcats, three of which are top-10 squads (Virginia, Wisconsin and Notre Dame). North-west gave away the ball only four times against Moorhead in the first game of the season, while forcing the Dragons into 11 turnovers.

McCollum’s teams at Northwest have improved in ball security every season with the exception of 2011-12. The Bearcats averaged 14.6 turnovers per game in his first season at North-west, and poised ball handlers, like freshman Justin Pitts and junior Lyle Harris, have led the squad to the top

of the MIAA – no other team in con-ference averages less than 11.1 turn-overs per game, a big reason for their success in 2014-15.

Seniors Grant Cozad and Matt Wallace were as shocked at the stats as McCollum, but know the composure of the inexperienced team is the cause.

“I think it’s our poise. We’re young but our guys play very mature,” senior Grant Cozad said. “Zach (Schneider) is a sophomore and plays like a senior out on the floor … You can see when (Pitts) is on the floor, he keeps his composure and he obviously makes mistakes, but their very little mistakes.”

As the two young guys in the starting lineup, Schneider (.4 turn-overs per game) and Pitts (two turn-overs per game) have not succumbed to the pressure. The starting five all-around secures the ball emphatically with under 7.5 turnovers per contest. Even with Pitts out due to an ankle injury, Harris has held his own, and the team continues to play tough and keep the ball on offense with their similarities in play.

“I wouldn’t say (their style of play is) anything really different,” Wal-lace said. “They’re both really good scorers and Lyle has showed that all year, and even years before that he can score the ball. I think, if any-thing, Pitts beats him in passing – but I don’t think that’s really the role that Lyle has coming into games. We need him to score and I’ll be more of a passer and less of a scorer.”

With only weeks to go and a hopeful return for Pitts, McCollum remains humble about the success his team has seen holding on to the ball.

“We just keep it real simple and generally those turnovers will de-crease,” McCollum said. “I think when you make an emphasis of ‘don’t turn it over,’ inevitably you do exactly what you’re trying not to do.

“We don’t make a huge empha-sis on it. We probably should a little more, I guess, but we just never have.”

Junior guar Lyle Harris makes a drive to the basket against Lindenwood University Jan. 28. Northwest went on to defeat Lindenwood 74-61.

BRIA CREEDEN | NW MISSOURIAN

Ball security goes without saying for McCollum’s squad

Baseball begins season down south

Upcoming games:OpponentDateNorthwestern Oklahoma State University

Location TimeAlva, Oklahoma

DayFri. 2/6 2:00 p.m.

Regis UniversitySat. 2/7 12:00 p.m.

Northwestern Oklahoma State UniversitySat. 2/7 3:00 p.m.

Fri.

Sat.

Sun.

Fri.

2/13

2/14

2/15

2/20

Cameron University

Cameron University (DH)

Cameron University

Northeastern State University (DH)

Lawton, Oklahoma

Alva, Oklahoma

Alva, Oklahoma

Lawton, Oklahoma

Lawton, Oklahoma

Tahlequah, Oklahoma

2:00 p.m.

12:00 p.m.3:00 p.m.

3:00 p.m.

12:00 p.m.3:00 p.m.