DOWN, BUT NOT OUT

JMU baseball starts conference play with close wins, blowout losses

By JACKSON HEPHNER The Breeze

Down 3-0 with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, sophomore catcher Jason Schiavone steps up to the plate.

With one swing of the bat, Schiavone gives JMU baseball its first Sun Belt Conference three-game series win with a walk-off grand slam versus Georgia State on April 7. It’s a dramatic end to a game that JMU looked like it was going to lose, but close wins have been common for the Diamond Dukes in 2023.

Just the night before, JMU won game one of the series via a walk-off hit-by-pitch in the 10th inning — it was the first time it won game one of a Sun Belt series in three tries.

“It’s so big getting the opening series win and getting the opportunity to win the weekend tomorrow,” sophomore infielder Coleman Calabrese said after the win.

It was the third time this season JMU had the chance to win a Sun Belt series. The Dukes have yet to lose a game two in Sun Belt play in three series, even when they’ve had to bounce back from lopsided game one losses.

In its series against South Alabama from March 31 to April 2, JMU lost game one 19-3 — its worst loss of the season. The next day, the Dukes won a back-and-forth game two against the Jaguars 13-8.

“It just shows the resilience of our team, for one,” JMU head coach Marlin Ikenberry said afterward, “and No. 2, it shows that when you do get knocked down like we did, you do get back up and play the game the right way — and that’s what I was proud of.”

But then, JMU was run-ruled 14-3 in the series finale the next day. Following wins with losses, and vice versa, are results the Dukes have been familiar with, starting all the way back in the beginning of conference play.

Before Georgia State, the Dukes had faced three Sun Belt opponents across seven games. Their record was 3-4, with two series losses and a 9-4 victory over Arkansas State in their only game after the first two games of their series were canceled.

After Georgia State, the Dukes are now 5-5 following a 3-1 loss in their final game against the Panthers.

The big difference between JMU’s five wins and five losses are the win margins. JMU’s average margin of victory is +3.4. Its average margin of defeat is -8.8. The Dukes’ wins have been mostly close, but plenty of their losses are decisive.

Likewise, plenty of those close wins have come immediately following a bad loss. In both of their series defeats, the Dukes weren’t swept after following up doubledigit game one losses with game two wins.

This trend of bouncing back after tough losses started in JMU’s first Sun Belt series against Coastal Carolina on March 17. In game one, the Chanticleers won decisively, 16-3. In game two, the Dukes flipped the script — beating Coastal 8-3 and never letting the Chanticleers hold a lead in arguably their most dominant win in conference play to this point. The series finale was also close — a 3-1 JMU loss that was tied entering the top of the ninth.

After Coastal, JMU hit the road to face Arkansas State in a standalone game March 26 after games one and two were canceled due to weather conditions. Head coach Marlin Ikenberry told his players before the game that it was a “one-and-done” series, making it clear it still counted.

The two teams played like it did. The Red Wolves came back from down 4-1 in the fourth to tie the game in the eighth, forcing a 10th inning to decide the matchup. The Dukes scored five runs in the 10th to win.

Now, after South Alabama and Georgia State, JMU is headed to Southern Miss, the first of many tests still left in its season. While the Dukes have already played Coastal, which is tied with Louisiana for No. 1 in the Sun Belt, they’ve yet to play any other Sun Belt opponents with a conference record above .500. Four of JMU’s six remaining opponents are above .500 — Southern Miss, Louisiana, Appalachian State and Old Dominion.

It’s a daunting slate for any team, let alone one that lost two games by double digits to South Alabama, which currently sports a 5-7 conference record, but JMU knew the task ahead of it ahead of the Sun Belt move.

Before conference play began, junior pitcher Ryan Murphy predicted the Sun Belt would be “super competitive,” saying the slate would be “a big challenge for us.” Sophomore outfielder Fenwick Trimble said he felt like the Dukes’ last nonconference series from March 10-11 against USC Upstate, which JMU lost two games to one, was the first weekend the team had some close games, giving JMU experience with tight matchups which was “kind of what we needed,” going into conference play.

Just under a month into Sun Belt action, and it’s definitely been a challenge for the Dukes, one that’s given them even closer games than their nonconference matchups. After the game two win against Georgia State, Ikenberry said every team in the league has “top line arms’’ and “big hitters,” adding that “every game is exactly what you’ve seen these last two games.” But when it comes to his own team’s success, Ikenberry said simply: “They’re battlers. They compete.”

“I think they’re seeing, hey, we string together some really good pitching performances and some really good at-bats, we can score runs and win games,” Ikenberry said.

CONTACT Jackson Hephner at breezesports@gmail.com. For more baseball coverage, follow the sports desk on Twitter at @TheBreezeSports.

By ZACH MENDENHALL The Breeze

The mindset of a track and field athlete never remains the same during the season. Behind the team’s multiple first place finishes this spring are athletes spending hours visualizing their races, measuring their jumps and overcoming mental hurdles. Field sports which the team competes in include discus, hammer and shot put, but there’s one that stands out as the most harrowing on an athletes mindset.

Javelin is both a physical and mental sport, senior thrower Shelby Staib said, making it important for athletes to master their mental health just as much as their physical strength. She usually has lots of “nervous jitters” during the first few meets. That nervous energy is eventually released and by the middle of the season she’s more focused on the little aspects of her throws, she said. By the end, she has to “trust all the muscle memory you’ve built up over that last couple of months of competing,” she said.

Although she can visualize the sport all she wants to, the most difficult part for Staib is muscle memory.

“If my muscles aren’t trained to do those specific moments, they won’t all come together in a single throw,” she said. “There’s so many moving pieces, whether it’s the arm or your legs and your hips and all those things play a role together.”

Trusting that her body knows what to do during exercises and applying that to her throw is what keeps someone from getting hurt, Staib said. If she tries to throw a javelin like a baseball, injury will ensue.

“Mastering muscle memory comes down to ‘routine repetitive movements,’” Staib said. “If you’re repeating a bad habit over and over and over again, you’re gonna keep that bad habit, so it’s really breaking down, ‘okay, what are my bad habits and what do I need to force my body to do.’”

Staib’s coach at Parkland High School (Pa.) — Pennsylvania’s one of 14 states where the javelin throw is a high school sport — helped her find different types of “mental training,” different types of run, sprints and foundations at the professional level that would provide guidance and techniques for her, she said.

It’s easy for athletes to get into a “tornado mentality,” Staib said, where they can become