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Miami University baseball is back in Oxford. Playing the fourth home game of the season and the first one with students on campus, the Miami baseball team battled the University of Dayton on McKie Field under the lights Wednesday night.
In front of a large crowd with a 60 degree game-time temperature, the RedHawks failed to take advantage of favorable playing conditions and fell to the Flyers 7-3. Nevertheless, the Red and White was encouraged by the enormous amount of support the team received and hope it is a sign of good things to come.
"(We had) great, great fans, great, great fan base and crowd tonight," said senior pitcher Steve Antoniotti. "(It was) really the first warm day of baseball of the year here in Oxford so it was a lot of fun to see that. Sorry we couldn't give them a better show but we will turn around. I know a lot of people aren't really used to seeing Miami baseball be at 5-14 or 5-13 and all that, but I promise we have the talent, we will definitely turn it around here very soon."
Coming off last year's campaign in which it finished 32-24 and made a trip to the MAC Tournament, Miami has struggled to a 5-14 record thus far. Starting the year against four nationally ranked teams certainly didn't help matters, and neither did playing the first 15 contests on the road. Now into the conference schedule with several home stands on the docket, the RedHawks will look to turn things around.
"(We've had) a really tough schedule but we're very young and to be honest with you, our record is very deceiving," Antoniotti said. "The baseball gods as they like to say haven't really gone our way so far this year. To be honest with you nobody's panicking, nobody is hitting any type of buttons saying, 'Oh crap, we're not going to be playing as well this year.' But we are definitely working on things for this coming weekend and we're just taking it one game at a time."
Dayton entered Wednesday's game on a six game skid against the 'Hawks. After taking a 2-0 lead on back-to-back one-run innings in the third and fourth, the Flyers exploded for five runs in the fifth to break the game wide open. The visitors started their big inning with three singles in four batters to score a run. Miami then brought in relief pitcher sophomore Brandon Meister who proceed to hit the first two batters he faced, loading the bases and pushing another Flyer past home plate. Two Dayton singles later, the Flyers were in control of the game with a 7-0 lead.
Down but not out, Miami mounted a rally in the bottom of the inning. Two singles and a walk loaded the bases for the RedHawks. Another base on balls brought junior Eric Darlage home for Miami's first run of the game. Then, with two outs and the bases still loaded, junior Chris Nadeau drilled a single into right center for his ninth and 10th RBIs of the season.
The RedHawks were held at bay for the rest of the night, not able to advance a runner past second base.
Although Miami has had a rough start to its season, all is not lost for the Red and White. The RedHawks have only played three conference games as they are just getting started on their MAC schedule. And with a relatively young squad this year, Miami's tough early schedule may pay dividends in the future as the team learned many valuable lessons on the road.
"That's the biggest thing-our inexperience-the reason our record is where it is," Antoniotti said. "I think these younger guys are finally seeing what baseball is like being back at home, seeing the crowd; I think the whole deer in the headlights for the freshmen and sophomores is kind of out of the way and now we're good to go."
Miami head coach Dan Simonds shares his player's optimism. While his club's start hasn't been anywhere near where he hoped it would be, Simonds realizes that there is plenty of time for a mid-season turnaround.
"It's been a little bit frustrating in the sense that we seem to haven't got into our rhythm yet," Simonds said. "I feel that we have a solid ball club, we did play a very tough schedule at the start of the season. However as of late we just got to start playing better baseball. I think that definitely the talent is here, we have enough options and plenty of depth, but we just have to play more consistent baseball."
The RedHawks will now head to Ypsilanti, Mich. for a weekend series against Eastern Michigan University. It will be Miami's second conference series of the season and a chance to get back on the right track.
"It's a new season quite honestly," Simonds said. "We just got to play a lot better in the MAC, certainly hope to learn from this first part of the season in playing a very tough schedule. It's all about winning the MAC, that's our goal to start the season; it's right there for us."
