The UTRGV Baseball Team is set to start its new season with a three-game home series against Houston Christian University beginning at 6:30 p.m. Friday.
The Vaqueros finished last season with a record of 33-25 overall and 17-13 in the Western Athletic Conference.
Asked how the players have been preparing for the season mentally and physically, graduate catcher RJ Ochoa replied their strength and conditioning coach Lucas Monroe has been training them “right” for the new season.
“Mentally, we go through this thing called Brian Cain,” Ochoa said about the recordings by the mental conditioning coach. “It’s right before practice, so we all listen to [it] and, hopefully, it gets everybody right.”
Head coach Derek Matlock said he has been trying to get the pitch count up.
“The nutrition [and] sleep part of it, too,” Matlock said. “They are locked into their nutrition and sleep. We get after them pretty good. Monroe, our strength coach, does their body fat, so we can kind of tell if they’re being slackies.”
Graduate pitcher Colten Davis said they have been doing a lot of running and that the fall was “gruesome.”
Asked how the team gets along, Davis replied the team is pretty tight. He said there are a lot of returning players and they taught the newcomers the culture of the program.
“Everybody has bonded like brothers,” he said. “We all have each other’s back and [are] ready to go out there and compete.”
Davis said the coaches are great and they always support the players.
“They’re a second family for us,” he said. “They would do anything for us and we would do anything for them.”
Ochoa said the team gets along well and there is no fighting or arguing.
“I think our team chemistry is really off the charts,” he said. “It’s fun to be with the guys in class, and we help out each other whenever we can and pass our classes.”
Matlock is excited for the first game of the season.
“I mean, it’s the team that went into [California State University, Sacramento] and beat Sac 3 out of 4,” he said. “Something that we’ve never done.”
He also predicts the Houston Christian University Huskies will have a good offense.
“They got a Hall of Fame coach named Lance Berkman,” he said. “We’re just going to get excited for the first game. Take that game one pitch at a time. Then, we’ll let the season roll out.”
Berkman is a six-time MLB All-Star who played 15 seasons for teams including the Houston Astros, New York Yankees, Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals.
Davis is looking forward to their matchups against Grand Canyon University because that was the team the Vaqueros lost to, 5-4, in the Conference Championship in 2021, his first year with the program.
Davis says he is excited for every single game, and is going to treat every single one like a game from the World Series.
“This is the last season for us and a lot of guys from the team,” he said. “We go out there and play our hardest every game. You never know what we might do.”
Asked how he thinks the team will do compared to last season, Matlock replied “I wish I knew. I wish I had a crystal ball.”
He said the team is talented and deeper on the mound than they have been since he has been with the program.
“I think the power situation is about the same as it was last year,” Matlock said. “We got a lot of power in the lineup.”
Ochoa said he wants to win the conference and regional championships this season.
“I think we got the team to do it,” he said. “I just want to be here for the team, whatever they need me to do and ball out.”
Davis said the expectations for the team are as high as they have always been. He also said they, obviously, want to win the championship and regional.
“But 40 games, we want to win 40 games,” Davis said. “I expect we can do that. We have every right and every capability to do that. We just have to compete.”
Davis said one of the expectations he holds himself to is being an All-WAC player.
The Vaqueros will face off against the Huskies again at 6:30 p.m. Saturday and noon Sunday. All games will be held at the UTRGV Baseball Stadium on the Edinburg campus.
