Joe Carbone might have a wealth of baseball knowledge, but is trying to intertwine the concepts of student and athlete.
Baseball has a lot of common themes with academics, Carbone said. And developing an aggressive mentality on the diamond is much like something his team deals with every day.
It's like studying for a test
Carbone said. If you're not studying for the test you're not going to do well because you aren't confident.
If you're really aggressive with reading your notes, studying hard and going after it you're going to be a lot more confident.
This weekend, the Ohio coach wants to see his players take control of the situation and attack the ball at every opportunity.
Aggressiveness both on the field and behind the plate is key to a team's success, Carbone said.
We've always had aggressive players here at Ohio University Carbone said. We try to attack at the plate
attack in the field
and attack on the mound. When our guys hesitate
their natural ability doesn't get to come out.
Last weekend at the Elon Classic, the Bobcats struggled in their first two games and were outscored 17-6.
After Saturday's contest, the Bobcat offense came to life, scoring 13 runs against Towson.
Coach Mal (Scott Malinowski) pounded it into our heads during pregame and in the hotel and after the game Saturday to be more aggressive
outfield Robert Maddox III said.
I think that showed a lot on Sunday.
Because the Elon tournament was the first time the Bobcats had seen non-familiar pitchers since October, hitters were a bit puzzled in the first two games of the tournament, Maddox said.
He added that this weekend's games are steps towards team-wide improvement.
(Being aggressive) is something we always try to work on
Carbone said.
We try and get our guys to be like that mentally so we can get the most out of them.
In the batter's box, the Bobcats try to work pitch counts to situations where pitchers are likely to throw pitches batters can hit.
We're always trying to get fastballs
Maddox said. When you can get counts into 3-1 or 2-0
you can be pretty sure you're going to get a nice pitch. Those are the ones we want to drive hard.
Carbone compares his team's hesitancy to the process of studying -- going from homework, to reviewing and executing.
If you do the homework and the study guide
if you try and learn all the things we do from our notes and our reading
