MAC preseason poll is out. Miami & Kent at the top.

https://ohiobobcats.com/news/2026/2/11/mid-american-confe...

What is the deal with our digital media presence? From what I could find, we may be the only MAC Team with no streaming access to these Murray State games? Different start times listed for today's game - seen 11:00 AM and 3 PM. How hard is it?

Update: now I see today's game is postponed with DH tomorrow.

Per the Murray State website, the Racers took two of three in the series, winning game one (13-4) and game two (11-8). The Bobcats prevented the sweep by taking game three (15-13).

About as good of a start as we could have hoped for against a team that was in Omaha last year. To get a win to go with a close loss...way better than I expected.

Basically our only regular player from last year to return, Cam Bryant, was the star of the weekend. 7 for 15 with 3 doubles and 2 homers. Damn.

OSU/VCU transfer Will Henson, and Tulane transfer Grant Wilson also had big weekends. On the mound was much like last year, ugly across the board. Only positive shoutout is to returning reliever Landon Price who threw 3 scoreless.

4 at Tennessee Tech next weekend.

WVU wipes the floor with us, 19-6. Not sure why they didn't use the run rule as they played the full 9. Former Bobcat SS Matt Ineich bats lead off and goes 4 for 5 with 2 doubles, 3 RBI, 3 R. Ouch. 10 walks from the pitching staff. More ouch.

Dropped 3 of 4 to Dayton. We were outscored just 26-28 over the 4 games, our losses all being by 3 and our win being a blowout. In the win, freshman Mason Gass entered in the 3rd inning and finished the rest of the way, no runs and NO WALKS. Give him a starting spot, if he gets hit so be it he throws strikes. Despite not getting a start yet, Mason actually leads the team in innings pitched. Landon Price and Dillon Masters have been solid out of the pen as they were last year.

Max Palinski (OF) is one of few that has played every game yet has really struggled. As I mentioned earlier, on the pitching side Aiden Cook has been dreadful but keeps getting starts. These are the 2 players Coach See brought in from Ohio State and its starting to seem like they have unreasonably long leashes.

MAC play next weekend if the field can take all the rain expected this week. NIU at home is a chance to start with a positive series, need to find a way to take 2 and go from there.

I'm by no means a college baseball or roster expert but I've been around and playing baseball pretty much my whole life. I expect it to be a rough year with the transition to a new coach. I was able to see most of the Saturday game vs Dayton before heading to the Convo for that mess. I saw some promise on Saturday, it wasn't all negative. Back to back innings we had 2 on and nobody out...but failed to score both times. One of our kids was asked to bunt in two AB's and failed both times to get a bunt down. The CF made a great sliding catch but also barely got two balls that looked routine and he misjudged. The wind was blowing out and that may have been a factor. One ball he almost didn't get back on and crashed into the fence, the other he charged then had to make a leaping catch because he almost over-ran it. Good news, he caught them both (but both were nearly disasters). Our pitchers battled hard and kept the game close.

My expectations for Year 1 under See are pretty low, I just hope to see some growth as the season progresses and hopefully that leads into a positive Years 2 and 3. It's typically tough for me to get to OU home games with work/family schedule but hopefully I can get to more games this spring.

I think we can all agree that this season is a wash, pains me to say but just shows how deep in a hole the program is currently in. Hiring See was a good first step. This will be a long season, my personal goal for the club is to earn some respect in conference play. Whether that be sneaking out a win against Kent, winning a couple series against weak opponents, winning a game or two against Miami, etc. Small goals but enough to inspire the clubhouse moving forward.

That all being said, I couldn't care less about the record in non-conference play. I care about the box scores because baseball is a game of numbers and that's where you find areas that need improvement. I care about See evaluating what he has and finding who is really here to compete and who isn't. We're in a different stage of college athletics and with the current state of the program, everybody should be on a one-year contact.

Find out who can throw strikes and give them the ball. Find out which hitters are going to compete every single pitch in the box and get them at bats. I don't care what year he is, how much scholarship he's on, how much NIL is involved. This is how you set the standard and establish a culture. I saw it first hand when Smith transitioned into the program so its not impossible.

Agree on all points. See is a good recruiter, he recruited me (although I was probably his easiest sale). He's great with parents as well which can have a lot of influence on the high school recruits. I'm excited to see how he builds his roster in the coming years.

Looking at last year's 3 games vs. NIU vs. this year the pitching actually gave up 10 less runs (28 this year vs. 38 last). Pitching also improved this series to 25 Ks & 22 BBs vs. 18 Ks & 24 BBs in last year's NIU series. Pitching trend is improved but really tough to win games when you are giving up 9 runs on average a game in an NIU series this year vs. 12 last year. Also this vs. the bottom of the MAC teams is not good. The trend is better but still well below acceptable. Also does not help that the offense was down on both runs by 7 (17 vs. 24) and 16 hits (18 vs. 34) year-over-year NIU series. We have not replaced a lot of the power and production we lost last year offensively. Sure seems like pitching still has a lot further to improve and this past series the offense declined almost as much as the pitching improved vs a not very great NIU team. Hopefully we can see some trends improving as still early and going to have to see some different guys get chances and who responds.

Was hoping that there would be a little bit more bright spots on the pitching side with some of the new guys or unlocking an existing guy but that is yet to materialize. I am going to chalk this year up as Moore's last contribution and the See player/team era starts next year in earnest. Thought maybe this year could be a little better than last but starting to abandon that view.