With SEC Play Beginning, Baseball Cats Focused on Themselves
The Kentucky baseball team split its season-opening series with Lipscomb, with each team winning one game. Since that time, the Cats have found their stride, winning 12 of the last 13 games, including a 9-2 victory over Northern Illinois on Tuesday night at Kentucky Proud Park.
Kentucky had its 10-game winning streak stopped on Saturday, but UK has bounced back with a 2-1 win over Wofford on Sunday and the victory over Northern Illinois on Tuesday. Now, the Cats are preparing to begin Southeastern Conference play this weekend at Georgia.
Kentucky went to the College World Series last year, but the majority of that team is gone. That means that most of the current Cats have never played in an SEC game. UK head coach Nick Mingione touched on that following Tuesday’s win.
“You can tell (the new players), but until they do it for themselves, they won’t know,” Mingione said. “You can tell them all about it.”
Mingione hopes that his team will take the same approach into SEC play that they have used all season.
“What I hope our guys do is, yeah, it’s SEC play, but you’ve got to approach it like we’ve approached every other game,” Mingione said. “Hopefully, we’ve done a good job as coaches training our players. We’re not competing against our opponent, we’re competing against the game. They need to do that same thing.”
Mingione noted how important catcher Devin Burkes will be for the Cats as SEC play begins.
“Huge. He’s one of very few people in our program that have SEC playing experience,” Mingione said. “His leadership has been great, great at-bats. We’re going to need him.”
Over the last two seasons, as the Cats have made back-to-back Super Regional appearances, Mingione believes that his team has done a good job of respecting the opponent while being able to focus on themselves and what they do.
“That’s the one thing that I’ll tell you that our guys have done a good job of in recent years,” Mingione said. “It doesn’t matter who we’re playing, with all due respect, we respect every opponent and they’re a great team. But our focus needs to be on us and what we do. And I feel confident that, as long as our focus is on what we can control, then there’s a chance we’re going to get the results we want. Our focus needs to be on what Kentucky does well and we need to force our will on the game. When we’re at our best, that’s where our focus is, focused on us executing.”
UK second baseman Luke Lawrence, a transfer from Illinois State, has never played in an SEC game but he’s prepared for that challenge.
“Definitely, I’m really excited to go into SEC play,” Lawrence said. “I think everybody is pretty pumped up. Get to Athens, take it one game at a time and hopefully stack wins.”
How do Lawrence and his team go into a series against a team ranked in the top 10 nationally?
“I think it’s just one day at a time,” Lawrence said. “I think just one at-bat at a time, one pitch at a time and knowing that we’re good enough to do it.”
Kentucky is 13-2 on the season, but SEC play begins this weekend and the Cats need to be focused on what they do well. It’s an approach that has worked well for Mingione and his teams during his tenure at UK.
