By RYAN SHUMAKER
Sports Editor
Northwestern Oklahoma State baseball will kick off its season tomorrow afternoon in a double header against the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith.
The Rangers have been working hard this off-season sticking to two simple philosophies to ensure success, committing to a process and competing every day.
Second year head coach Sam Carel defines competitiveness in the Ranger baseball program as, “We define competitiveness by how we as a team and we as individuals can maximize what we have each day as it pertains to the process of achieving the goals we want to achieve.”
The process of building a winning program and developing that competitive nature Carel defined enters year two, with some pieces from year one returning. Second-team All Great American Conference selection Matt Benn, a senior outfielder from Teulon, Manitoba, Canada, will be back and ready to produce in the heart of the line-up for the Rangers. A selected captain by his teammates, Carel is very excited to have Benn returning as a leader for the team both on and off the field. “It’s a tremendous asset whenever you have a returning player with his tenacity, grit, and skill set that has been selected as a captain by his peers, that says a lot about the individual.”
Joining Benn on the diamond well be a slew of new faces that possess two key attributes that Carel says he and his staff look for every year during the recruiting process. “Every year our recruiting philosophy is to bring in guys that exhibit either one of two things, either speed or power,” said Carel. “Speed and power are the two things that you can’t teach, you can only enhance it.”
Speed and power will be crucial when the Black-and-Red take to the diamond against conference foes as the Great American Conference is known as one of the toughest conferences in the nation for baseball. Northwestern baseball has been tabbed eleventh in the preseason coaching poll, however throughout the season Carel maintains his club will only be worried about themselves and sticking to the process of winning and developing the competitive nature he previously defined. “I say this all the time, there is no team that is on our radar, we worry about ourselves, period.”
That mindset will be evident throughout the season as the Rangers look to work through the process of getting to their main goal, winning the last game. Wherever that final game occurs or whenever it happens the Rangers will have months of baseball to prepare for that test.
After their opening road contest with Arkansas-Fort Smith the Rangers will return home to Glass Family Field at Myers Stadium to take on Northeastern Oklahoma State and West Texas A&M during opening weekend Feb. 13-14 in Alva.
After that the Black-and-Red will jump directly into conference play as they will head down to Durant, Okla. for a match-up against Southeastern Oklahoma State University Feb. 19-20.
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