As the baseball season gets ready to kick off this month, coach Pat Hallmark is excited, but isn’t rushing to set expectations just yet. With eight players signed right out of high school and 16 transfers, the Roadrunners’ experience this year is very different from last. Hallmark pointed out that going into the previous season, he was more comfortable because they had more of a veteran team.
“We had more pitching experience last year. Experience in general, but mostly it was on the pitching side,” Hallmark explained. “This year we don’t necessarily know. We got a lot to prove on the mound.”
Out of the new players, Hallmark has noted a few that could be instrumental in the team’s performance. Junior infielder Ty Hodge could be the starting shortstop if he has a healthy knee, and junior pitcher Sam Simmons is someone that fans could potentially see often. Another player to keep an eye out for, senior infielder Norris McClure, he is someone who is “capable of a lot from a pure talent standpoint,” Hallmark says.
“It’s exciting,” Hallmark details. “We’ll try to point them in the right direction, be able to handle adversity no matter how talented you are. Those are three guys that you’ll see a lot [of].”
Preparing players for anything, especially the new faces, is a key factor in getting the team into top shape mentally and physically. Hallmark explained that the coaching staff focuses on testing and preparing the “mettle” of their athletes to see how they respond to adversity.
“A huge factor is how you handle adversity in a baseball game. There are so many little tiny things within the game that are difficult,” Hallmark said. “We just want effort and focus. If we do those two things, we can look in the mirror and say we do them everyday, the overachieving and the wins tend to take care of themselves to a certain degree.”
Passion, effort, work ethic and focus are vital, and Hallmark emphasizes that you have to love the game to stay motivated in addition to maintaining the right mindset all season. The passionate coaching staff tries their best to prepare the team to use their talent and skill to overcome challenges like bad calls or errors, which is essential in closing the gap between their opponents.
“The players work really hard here,” Hallmark says. “We have enough talent. We need to come together, team dynamic, culture, how we handle adversity — they all go hand in hand [with] toughness. It’s not a physical toughness to me, it’s more of a mental toughness.”
The Roadrunners haven’t won a conference title yet, but Hallmark isn’t too focused on that at the beginning of a season.
The team is focused on the present, player development and improvement. How they handle adversity is indicative of how their season will be defined. “Wins and losses are not an indicator of what’s happening,” Hallmark expressed.
With an abundance of new players, the coaching staff finds it essential to temper expectations and limit potential misjudgements that could make the team believe their season was inadequate. Hallmark says that for him and his team, it’s best “to not to set a number of wins.” He elaborates, saying, “In a positive way, when you set a number of wins and [then] you reach it, you’ve got six games left or something and I don’t like that feeling. If you set a goal, you leave yourself more room to work.”
Hallmark clarifies, “You gotta be careful. A lot of new guys, still getting to know them, still figuring out roles pitching wise, position-player wise. We don’t know exactly who’s going to play, but we know our options. Those truly won’t be defined until at least three weeks into the season, and maybe then I might have a little better, realistic expectation of what to expect. I don’t want to be wrong.”
Preparing for the games so far is a lot of repetition practice and honing in on specifics. This season, the Roadrunners are aiming to build a team dynamic rooted in effort, focus, and resilience — qualities that will serve them, win or lose, throughout the year.
