EDINBURG — Opening day of the college baseball season is rapidly approaching. With the start of a new year come new expectations for the UTRGV baseball team.
The Vaqueros have consistently raised the bar during the four years since head coach Derek Matlock took over the program.
UTRGV won the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) regular season championship in 2019, but didn’t complete the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, before bouncing back to reach the 2021 WAC Baseball Tournament Final — two wins from reaching an NCAA Regional.
“I think there’s more expectation. When I first got here that first year, there was losing in the blood and it’s hard to get that out,” Matlock said. “When you get in a tight game, kids have it in their heads that they’re going to get beat. It’s pretty common for all of us individuals in certain situations when we haven’t had success, when things get tough. Now, it’s not that way. If we’re down a little bit, we’re playing in there tight, we feel like we can win the baseball game because we have a little bit of winning in our blood.”
The Vaqueros were picked to finish tied for second in the WAC’s Southwest Division by the division’s six coaches and received one first-place vote in the WAC preseason poll.
“The expectations are high and they just get higher every year,” said outfielder Freddy Rojas Jr., who ranked second on the team with nine home runs and third with a .298 batting average last season.
“We got better players, we got older guys, so coach Matlock expects us to win more games this year and execute what we need to do.”
UTRGV redshirt senior Kevin Stevens was named the WAC Preseason Pitcher of the Year, as voted on by the conference’s 13 head coaches.
The Vaqueros’ right-handed pitcher went 6-1 with a 2.02 ERA during WAC competition last season. In nine starts, including two complete games and one shutout, he pitched 62.1 innings, striking out 64 while allowing just 38 hits and 15 walks. Opponents hit .174 off him. Stevens ranked second in the WAC in strikeouts, opponents’ batting average and innings pitched, third in ERA and wins and fewest home runs allowed (two), fourth in batters struck out looking (16), seventh in fewest hits allowed (38) and 10th in fewest doubles allowed (six).
“Right now, the goal for everyone is to make it to a regional,” Stevens said. “We have the team to do it; I’ve been wanting to do it since last year. We fell a little bit short, but I feel like it’s our time to do it now.”
The Vaqueros open the 2022 season with the Al Ogletree Classic, a three-game nonconference series against George Washington, beginning Friday at UTRGV Baseball Stadium in Edinburg. Game 1 is scheduled for a 7 p.m. start Friday, with Game 2 slated for 1 p.m. Saturday and Game 3 at noon Sunday.
