(CU Independent graphic/Adam Milner)
The men’s baseball team is getting ready for a long weekend.
The Colorado Buffaloes baseball team will take on the University of Northern Colorado Bears in two double-headers April 10 and 11.
The first two games will be played Saturday at Nelson Farm Park in Johnstown, Colo., with the first game starting at noon. The saga continues with the final two games back in Boulder Sunday at Scott Carpenter Park, also beginning at noon.
Colorado has faced the Bears four previous times this season; their record against them is 2-2 coming into this weekend.
Senior Garrett Smith, captain, coach, president and second baseman of the team, said this record is not what he had expected.
“It was a little disappointing for us because in the past we’ve usually had no trouble beating them,” Smith said. “But their team was better this year so that is something to consider.”
Having only played three games up to that point, senior outfielder Chad Petersen said he thinks the team was still adjusting to the new season and to each other.
“We’ve had more games since then, those were our first conference games and really some of our first games of the year,” Petersen said. “So now we should be able to hopefully play better this time.”
David Brewster, freshman third baseman, said he definitely has more confidence this time around.
“You never want to feel too confident, but I feel like we’re a much more mature team now and everyone is a lot more focused than the first time we played them,” Brewster said.
Still, all three of these players say they feel that the team needs to work more on their hitting in order to be ready for the game.
“This week we specifically are looking at improving our hitting, which hasn’t been as good as we hoped,” Smith said. “We’ve been doing a lot of drills in practices to hopefully help us out with that.”
Petersen said the team is focused on getting back to the fundamentals of the game.
“We’ve struggled hitting for about three weeks now so we’re trying to change things up and practice some of the basics with hitting,” Petersen said. “Hopefully we can come up with more runs this weekend.”
Overall, Brewster said he thinks the team is prepared for UNC.
“Everyone’s really ready to come out and play this weekend,” he said.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Kayla Cornett at Kayla.cornett@colorado.edu.
