After playing six games on the road and compiling a 3-3 record, the Bobcats are prepared to play their first home game of the season.
The team will not be playing at Bob Wren Stadium tonight, however. Instead they will play host to Ohio Wesleyan when they meet at the V.A. Memorial Stadium in Chillicothe.
Despite playing away from Athens, the Bobcats will still look to take advantage of being the home team. In 2007, the Bobcats went 17-10 at home compared to 6-20 on the road.
We were really young last year
and with the inexperience of our team playing away from home was a lot harder senior outfielder Matt Stiffler said. It's a big change this year because we have more experience and we already have three wins on the road.
A big reason the Bobcats saw lots of success at home last season was the clutch hitting of Stiffler and sophomore outfielder Marc Krauss.
As a freshman last season, Krauss led the team with a .369 batting average, and Stiffler was not far behind, hitting .359 from the plate. Stiffler and Krauss also led the Mid-American Conference in on-base percentage.
After six games this season, Stiffler believes the team is playing together better than it was at this time last year.
Our senior leadership this year is ten times better than last year
he said.
Stiffler has started off strong with a .333 average and two home runs, while Krauss has just begun to work out of his early-season slump.
Krauss said that after his first three games, when he went just 1-for-9, he and the coaches sat down to look over his approach at the plate.
It was all mental
and in my head; the coaches helped me fix it
and good things started to happen
Krauss said.
Over the weekend against Memphis, Stiffler went 3-for-5 with a triple, RBI and a run scored in a 5-4 Ohio victory. Krauss started to show why he was named MAC Freshman of the Year last season by breaking out of his slump and going 2-for-5 and hitting his first home run of the season in a losing effort.
With the season very young, there is still plenty of time left for Krauss to return to his hitting form of last season and for the Bobcats to improve their hitting attack.
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T.J. Carolin
