University of Central Arkansas baseball coach Doug Clark says he has no secret sharpening techniques for the Bears' claws when they played nationally ranked opponents.
The Bears (23-24) stunned 10th-ranked and longtime NCAA power Wichita State 10-9 Tuesday night at Wichita, where the shocked Shockers (36-12) fell to 27-4 at home this season. Earlier in the season, UCA downed Ole Miss, then eighth-ranked, 4-3 at Oxford, Miss.
"I don't approach these games against ranked teams like NCAA playoff games or they're more special," Clark said Wednesday. "I just tell the guys before the game to let's go play and have fun in a great atmosphere for baseball. I try not to make the game bigger than it is. Now, the players might have some extra motivation. We have 10 seniors and we're getting toward the end and they're trying to savor every experience."
Clark, whose son, Cody, played at Wichita State experienced many a game against the Shockers when he was an assistant at the University of Arkansas. He said Tuesday's win might even be more of a benchmark than the earlier one against Ole Miss.
"It was certainly a huge win, tradition-building win," Clark said. "Wichita State is a more storied program. They've been to 20-plus NCAA regionals and super regionals, a couple of College World Series. They honored their 1989 national champs before the game. They throw all that tradition and stuff in your face. They have banners and stuff on the fences and everywhere. They are awful tough at home.
"In that kind of atmosphere a great atmosphere for college baseball we weren't intimidated."
In fact, the Bears took a 10-4 lead in the second inning plating seven runs and sending 11 batters to the plate. They hit five home runs in the game.
"I was most pleased that we got to their pen," Clark said. "They used five pitchers against us and that's something. I've been playing these guys for years and they always have arms, arms, arms and more arms. They seem to never have a pitcher with an ERA over 4 and most of the time, they're under 3.0.
"Now it was good for us yesterday that they play Arizona State today. But that's how they have such a tradition of great pitching. They get those young arms and freshmen ready for next year with games like this against us. We faced some good pitchers. And we had a seven-run inning. That was fun."
The win also was big for Southland Conference baseball. In addition to the Bears' wins over Ole Miss and Wichita State, Texas-San Antonio and Texas-Arlington both have defeated Texas and Southeastern Louisiana has knocked off Tulane and LSU and Sam Houston State has downed Rice.
"You've got to root for your conference and all these wins help our conference and the RPI and the chances of getting two teams in the NCAA playoffs," Clark said. "It's one thing to play good teams, but you also have to win some of those. You win games like this and the NCAA takes a closer look at you and your conference. You build a tradition. We want to help the conference because in a couple of years, we want to be in that position of one of those teams possibly getting an NCAA bid."
For now, it's back to the conference race for the Bears, who are 4-4 in Southland Conference series this season. They play at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi this weekend and it's in the middle of a grueling scheduling.
The Bears left for Wichita at 8 a.m. Tuesday and got back in Conway at 6:15 a.m. Wednesday. They are set to leave Conway at 4:30 a.m. Friday for a flight to Corpus Christi for a 3 p.m. game that afternoon. After Sunday's game against the Islanders, the Bears will play two mid-week games before wrapping up the season with three games against Northwestern State Thursday, Friday and Saturday. UCA needs to win five of its last eight games to have a .500 season in its second year in NCAA Division I.
"And we're not the deepest in pitching," Clark said. "The road can be tough in college baseball, but after being on the road almost all of March, it's not something we're not used to. And wins like against Wichita State make it a lot more fun."
