JOE HASENSTAB | Staff Reporter
The Butler baseball team played three games in South Carolina last weekend, dropping all three.
The team faced off against Atlantic Coast Conference newcomer Pittsburgh on Friday. The Bulldogs (1-4) were able to put up seven runs but could not contain Pittsburgh’s powerful offense, losing 15-7.
The team lost by four on Saturday to Wofford, and lost a heartbreaker Sunday to South Carolina Upstate after surrendering a ninth-inning lead and losing 7-6.
The team has now lost four of its first five games. The bulldogs must now try to stay positive amidst the early season struggles. Junior catcher Will Amador said.
“The mindset you have to have is you just have to build off the positives we have. We put together a lot of hits, put up some runs, and had some good innings with pitching. We kind of fell apart at times, and we can’t let that bother us. You just have to build off of the positives and pretty much go from there.”
Junior outfielder Michael Fries agreed with Amador and added that all of the players still believe in their team.
“Nobody is down; it’s tough with a couple of losses, but there are definitely a lot of things we can build off of and improve on,” Fries said. “I think we’re going to take a step in the right direction here soon.”
The next chance for the team to head in that direction comes this weekend when the Bulldogs travel to Samford University for a three-game series.
Butler does not know much about the non-conference opponent beside the fact that the team has been able to play outside for longer than the Bulldogs.
Despite the disadvantage, Butler is going into next weekend confident.
“I think there are a couple of guys that are going to have big weekends,” Fries said. “We’ll hopefully put pitching, hitting and defense together and win a couple games.”