Baseball building ‘connection’ on and off-field to compete in the Mountain West

By Eric Evelhoch, Sports Editor

There’s a different energy around Tony Gwynn Stadium this season.

It’s not just because the Aztecs won a share of the Mountain West Conference regular season championship for the first time since 2004 last season, or because the roster has 20 new freshmen and additional transfers.

After two seasons of coaching SDSU to one of the top pitching staffs in the conference, Shaun Cole has taken over as head coach of the Aztecs and is emphasizing the team being fully connected.

“It’s all a consistent theme and message about preparation, mind and body — how are you doing that?” Cole said.

“When we get a group of guys that start thinking that way and working that way, now we’re gonna get them to free up and compete at a high level and you’ll see that aggressive style of baseball.”

The Aztecs return 48.7% of their at bats from last season and 39.3% of their RBI production, so building chemistry throughout the lineup and in the field has been critical.

“That’s a big stepping stone to having success in this program,” said junior outfielder Irvin Weems. “We also talked a lot about having leadership and older guys taking over big roles, and even freshmen coming in and having big roles… just playing as a team and being more connected as a whole.”

Junior pitcher Chris Canada threw the most innings last season of all returning pitchers. SDSU gets back 41.2% of their innings pitched from last season and 60.4% of their starts on the pitching staff.

“We’re all just really looking forward to pulling on the same rope,” Canada said. “Now there’s no division (between pitchers and hitters), everyone’s just getting in work and we feel as one team.”

“There’s a different vision, there’s a different energy to it and people like to grab on to that,” Cole said. “Now it’s up to us to continue that momentum — we need to play and we need to win games, but I think right now there’s a good buzz and I think people are excited.”