How a Scrimmage Helped Kentucky Renew Its Identity Ahead of Sweeping South Carolina
Ebbs and flows, highs and lows, "baseball is a long season," yada yada yada.
You know all those tired tropes and how they apply to the game of baseball. Going through slumps is inevitable. Rough patches will come and go. It's the nature of taking the field multiple times a week for months on end.
For a while in the beginning of the season, it almost seemed like that wasn't going to happen to Kentucky. The Wildcats rattled off 17 wins in a row and got off to a scorching 8-1 start in SEC play, putting themselves in a position to easily achieve most all of the goals they set back in February.
Of course, that didn't happen. The slump came, and it hit hard. UK lost four conference series in a row, capped off by a devastating sweep in Nashville at the hands of Vanderbilt. All of a sudden, making the NCAA Tournament was no longer a shoe-in, while projections eased off the idea of the Wildcats being a Regional host.
Needing to right the ship ahead of playing then-No. 3 South Carolina, head coach Nick Mingione felt something shift in his team, despite coming off a fourth loss in a row.
During an inter-squad scrimmage last Tuesday, Mingione saw a lively rejuvenated bunch, one that had the same fiery approach of the team that couldn't lose a game if it tried to back in March.
"The way they scrimmaged, It was amazing. You know, we had this scrimmage and it almost like, brought them back to how this all started back in the fall," Mingione told reporters on Wednesday.
It's easy to lose mojo when players are dealing with school, road trips, practice and actually playing games three or four times a week. The highs of winning sure are high, but the lows can be quite cavernous. There was just something about that scrimmage that unlocked a part of the Cats that had been caged off over the past few weeks while the losses piled up.
Not having to play a midweek game that Tuesday, Mingione was instead able to go watch his son, Reeves, play. Feeling thrilled about his players, Mingione sent a text to his wife, Christen, that read "I got my team back, i'm on the way."
"They were chirping each other, making little comments like I make and Coach (Dan) Roszel make, they were just being themselves and it was like they were freed up," he said.
His gut feeling was right on, as the Wildcats went out and swept South Carolina, making an assertive statement across the SEC in the process. Kentucky's small ball style had the Gamecocks in a pretzel on defense, while a few big-time pitching performances helped secure the trio of wins.
It wasn't just that Tuesday scrimmage that turned things around in the eyes of Mingione, however. He also attributes the big weekend to a meeting that his team had with athletics director Mitch Barnhart:
"I give Mr. Barnhart a lot of credit too, because he met with our team last week. He met with our team for over an hour and he shared a lot of really good things, but he talked about us having an edge. He wants us to have our edge, he talked about the importance of not only how you start, but you got to finish and he challenged us to just cut it loose, just to go for it, to not play anything safe and to be aggressive and go for it. And I thought it's exactly what our team did."
The three wins puts Kentucky at 14-10 in SEC play with six games to go — three at Tennessee this weekend, then three at home against Florida to close out the regular season. A spot in the NCAA Tournament is locked up, but a strong finish could mean hosting a Regional at Kentucky Proud Park in the first week of June.
Mingione and his team will try and build off the excellent week that was continued via a 9-2 win over Tennessee Tech on Tuesday night, closing out the midweek slate. It's all about getting hot at the right time, and the Wildcats could be making the turn to try and make a valiant push to the top of the mountain in Hoover for the SEC Tournament, then look toward Omaha.
"It was just a matter of time before the guys got their groove back."
Game one between Kentucky and Tennessee in Knoxville on Friday, May 12 is set for 6:30 p.m. EST and will air on SEC Network+
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