Following Monday's drubbing at the hands of Dallas Baptist, WSU baseball coach Donnie Marbut was not a happy camper.
"We did not compete at a very high level and when don't do that you are going to get beat by a good team like Dallas Baptist," he said after the game, and if there's anything a team doesn't want to hear from its coach, it's the dreaded "we didn't compete." To make matters worse, it was WSU's third consecutive loss after starting the year 5-1.
The Cougs turned things around in a big way. After squeaking by Dallas Baptist in the finale of the two-game series on Tuesday, 8-7, WSU finished up the homestand by sweeping Utah Valley State, culminated by a 16-2 whipping of the Wolverines on Sunday.
Marbut sounded happier yesterday.
"Offensively, we played with some urgency for the first time this year," he said. "Hopefully, we keep our energy up moving forward."
Patrick Claussen led the way on Sunday by going 3-for-4 with a double and four RBIs. And if you're looking for another positive sign out of the bats, Cody Bartlett and Derek Jones seem to be crawling out of their slow starts.
Also of note: Adam Conley is still awesome. He led off the weekend series on Friday with eight innings in which he allowed just one run while striking out nine and walking none. His ERA now stands at 0.93 after four starts. Erstwhile Friday night starter Chad Arnold, who has been sidelined after elbow surgery, was scheduled to make his first start of the year yesterday, but he didn't. No word on what happened there.
The Cougs are rolling at a good time, because they face their toughest test of the year this weekend when they travel to Fresno State for a four-game series starting on Thursday at 6:05 p.m. The Bulldogs are ranked as high as No. 20.
One fun thing about this weekend's series? All the games are being webcast by FSU. If you did the trial run for the CBS college sports "XXL" package provided by the coupon code "FREEMONTH10", and your trial isn't over yet, you should have access to all of those games. (Same goes if your trial is over and you continued the subscription, obviously.)
Bonus video after the jump -- interviews with Marbut, Claussen and Jones.
Donnie Marbut
Patrick Claussen
Derek Jones