It is not often that a Southern Conference baseball team gets to play the twice-over defending national champions in a weekend series in just the second week of the season.
The Elon Phoenix squandered that opportunity, losing all three games by a combined score 17-3 to the University of South Carolina Feb. 24-26. Its record dropped to 4-3 on the season, ending an opening four-game winning streak, but Elon has a chance to turn it around, taking on High Point University Wednesday and College of Charleston March 2-4 in the first SoCon series of the 2012 season.
According to sophomore outfielder Eric Serra, the team got caught up in the hype of the situation.
“I felt like we thought we were ready, but when we got there, we definitely sure did not look or play ready,” he said. “It was one of those things where we got hyped up and caught up in everything around us and just forgot to play the game.”
In game one against South Carolina, a matchup that Serra called “brutal,” the Phoenix was nearly no-hit by Gamecocks pitchers Michael Roth, Nolan Belcher and Patrick Sullivan. Only senior shortstop Garret Koster’s homerun in the penultimate at-bat of the game prevented a no-no as the Phoenix fell 8-1.
In game two, Elon rallied in the ninth inning but fell 3-2. The Phoenix was then shutout by the Gamecocks 6-0 in game three, getting just three hits.
“The second game was one of those that took longer, but we started kicking it in high gear,” Serra said. “We started to play the game, and when we started doing that, things started to fall. The third game was just tough, because from the beginning, we found ourselves in a hole.”
South Carolina picked up a 5-0 lead by the end of the second inning in game three, a lead too insurmountable for the Phoenix to overcome.
“We tried to dig ourselves out of it, but the thing is, South Carolina is a good team,” Serra said. “You have to give them credit. When they jumped on us, we kind of hit a wall. The balls just started falling their way, the calls started going their way and you couldn’t do anything about it. It was just one of those weekends.”
A weekend that Elon will have to look past quickly. Wednesday, they take on High Point University, who currently sits second in the Big South Conference at 6-2.
“All of us know that High Point is no team to overlook,” Serra said. “We know that we have our first SoCon weekend coming up, but we’ve got High Point first. This weekend that just passed us, we’re definitely not just putting it behind and moving past it, we’re actually building from this.”
The Phoenix will then take on No. 30-ranked College of Charleston Cougars in Charleston. It will be the first three SoCon tests for Elon, the defending conference regular season champions.
Serra said the South Carolina losses, which ruined Elon’s perfect 4-0 record, are being used as motivation.
“(College of Charleston) better watch out, because I know for a fact that we’re ready, we’re hungry,” he said. “We were fired up for this past weekend; it didn’t turn out well. We want to turn things around, we want to prove to our fans, to our school, we want to prove to everyone that we’re not just some team. We’re there to be on the map. We want to get respected because that’s something we haven’t been able to achieve.”
The losses are also being used as a building block for the rest of the 2012 season.
“It may have been only three games, but three games where we learned,” Serra said. We’re not going to face a bigger crowd than we faced at South Carolina. For the younger guys, having a big crowd won’t be as overwhelming. Playing a team that’s ranked second in the nation, it’s not going to get much better than that. Any team that we face from here on out, we’ll be ready for them.”