Wildcats begin post-season run vs. UCO

LSC rivals to play first game in regional tournament

ABILENE -- Prior to the 2005 season, ACU head baseball coach Britt Bonneau vowed that the Wildcats would not go through another season like 2004.

Not that a share of the Lone Star Conference South Division title and 31 wins should be chalked up as a bad season.  But it certainly paled in comparison to the four seasons leading up to it when the Wildcats won 174 games, won two LSC Post-Season Tournament titles, reached four straight NCAA Division II South Central Region tournaments and won the 2003 tournament to earn a berth in the College World Series.

That's why the bitter taste of a mere 31-win season left everyone involved wanting to prove that it was merely a blip on the radar screen and nothing more.

Consider it mission accomplished as the Wildcats returned to their accustomed spot atop the Lone Star Conference in 2005 and were invited back to the NCAA Division II South Central Region Tournament in Cleveland, Miss., after missing last year's tournament.

ACU will open their post-season run Thursday with a 3 p.m. game against Central Oklahoma.  The game can be heard locally on KSLI 1280 AM.

"We're excited to get back into the regional tournament and compete for a spot in the College World Series," ACU head coach Britt Bonneau said.  "Delta State has a great facility, and the atmosphere will be second-to-none.  I'm excited for our guys to be able to play games of this magnitude in that kind of atmosphere."

ACU carries a 41-15 record and No. 5 national ranking into the tournament after winning the LSC South championship with a 16-4 mark.  The 2005 LSC Post-Season Tournament was cancelled meaning there is no overall conference champion.  However, the Wildcats had the fewest losses of any team in the league, finishing at 16-4, while LSC North Division champion Central Oklahoma finished at 20-5 in division play.

The Wildcats will take that 41-15 record to Cleveland, Miss., where they will join No. 1 seed Delta State, No. 3 seed Central Oklahoma and No. 4 seed West Alabama in the regional tournament.  The Statesmen are almost unbeatable at home and are coming off a 2004 national championship, the first baseball national title in school history

However, Ferris Field holds fond memories for a few Wildcats who were part of the team that beat Delta State twice on its home field, including a 13-10 win in the regional championship game that sent the Wildcats to the College World Series for the first time in school history.  Seniors Ryan Barker, Justin Whitlock and Kade Simmons, and juniors Joel Wells and Ben Brockman are the only players on the 2005 team that remain from the 2003 squad, and each of those players will be counted on to get the Wildcat back to Montgomery, Ala., in 2005.

"A lot of people don't think that going to Delta State to play in a regional is a positive," Bonneau said, "but we've got some good memories from our last trip there.  Delta State plays well at home, but we've played fairly well there in the last two regional touraments (5-2 record).  We've got a few guys left from that 2003 team that won the regional, and I know those guys are excited about going back."

Barker and Wells have keyed an ACU offense that has produced numbers that Wildcat baseball fans are accustomed to seeing during the season: .352 batting average, 498 runs scored, 159 doubles and 631 hits, all of which led the LSC, except the batting average, which was second to Central Oklahoma's .355.  ACU hit .300 with 360 runs scored, 101 doubles and 516 hits in 2004.  The Wildcats in 2005 have outscored opponents 498-282 and are hitting 83 points higher.

Barker is second on the team in hits (83) and leads in runs scored (65), and during the season he became the LSC and ACU career leader in both RBI and doubles.  He enters the Dallas Baptist game with 187 career RBI and 57 doubles.  He reached the doubles mark on the final day of the conference season (April 30) when he capped an 8 for 8 day in a doubleheader sweep of Eastern New Mexico by going 4 for 4 with four doubles in the second game.  His fourth double of the game broke the previous career record of 56, which was set in 2003 by former Wildcat great Brad Massey.

Wells posted his best collegiate season in 2005, carrying a .354 batting average into the regional tournament to go along with five home runs and a team-best 55 runs. He had his best day of the season on Feb. 12 when he set the ACU single-game record for hits by going 6 for 6 with five RBI in a 22-8 win at Incarnate Word.

Senior centerfielder Cody Cure has also posted another solid season, hitting .372 with one home run and 49 RBI to go along with a team-best 27 doubles and 26 stolen bases.  His doubles mark breaks Marcelino Escalante's record for doubles in a season, which he set in his all-America season of 2003.

Junior leftfielder Johnny Zepeda won the LSC batting title with a .455 batting average to go along with four home runs and 47 RBI, while junior shortstop Ruben Rivera was ninth in the LSC batting race with a .399 batting average to go along with 38 RBI.  ACU's production hasbeen so even all season that the Wildcats have seven players with at least 38 RBI on the year and five with at least 44.

As with any team, though, a 41-14 record doesn't happen with bats alone.  The Wildcats have consistently trotted out four of the league's best pitchers on the weekend in Ben Maynard (9-1, 3.63 ERA), Ben Brockmman (10-2, 3.46 ERA), Brandon Moore (9-0, 5.17 ERA) and Justin Whitlock (6-3, 4.99 ERA).  That Whitlock - virtually unhittable in the Wildcats' run to the 2003 CWS - is the No. 4 starter tells you all you need to know about the depth of the starting pitching staff.

Maynard and Brockman have each picked up wins on the same weekend five times this season, giving the Wildcats tremendous confidence each weekend.

"Anytime you can put guys out there like Maynard and Brockman it gives your entire team a lift," Bonneau said.  "Those guys will give you everything they've got everytime they step on the mound, and the guys behind them and on the bench gain a tremendous amount of confidence from that.  They've given us innings and they've given us wins; I don't know that you can ask more of a pitcher than that."

Moore has probably been the surprise of the staff after joining ACU from Arizona Western College where he was 11-4 in two seasons.  But once he gained a permanent spot in the rotation, he has been lights-out.  In fact, in his last seven starts he is 6-0 with one no-decision, and he picked up another win in relief in an April 5 non-conference win against St. Edward's.

The Wildcats' top three starters are a combined 28-3 on the season with a 3.61 cumulative ERA in 219 1/3 innings of work, and it's those kind of numbers that can give a team the confidence it can go on the road and win a regional tournament in an unfriendly environment.

And it's just that kind of challenge that Bonneau wanted his team to experience in 2005 as it set about to put the images of 2004 way back in the memory vault.

"I knew this team could be a very good one, and it's turned out the way that we all hoped," he said.  "Our seniors have done a great job leading this team and not being selfish about anything.  The guys on this team have accepted their role - whatever it is - and chosen to be part of a team that doesn't care how it gets done as long as we win games.  Those are the kind of teams we've had here in the past, and I'm happy for these guys that they've been able to have success this season."