The Daily Campus

Issue date: 4/8/08 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Nick Hart Elliot Glynn won't be taking the mound for the Huskies today, but will be a large part of a Huskies offense that is trying to get back on its feet after being swept by Cincinnati.

After the baseball team went 1-4 on a five-game homestand that concluded in a three-game sweep by Cincinnati at J.O. Christian Field, Huskies head coach Jim Penders suggested that the team might need a change of scenery.

"I don't know, maybe we're better off being on the road right now," Penders said. "We didn't do so well at home."

UConn (15-15) will get just that when they travel to Amherst, Mass. to play UMass (8-11) today at 3 p.m. at the Minutemen's Earl Lorden Field.

The Cincinnati sweep dropped UConn to 5-7 in the Big East, leaving them tied for eighth place with South Florida in the conference. UConn will also be fighting to avoid dipping below .500 for the first time since March 24, which coincidentally is the last time the Huskies played the Minutemen.

In order to get back on track, the Huskies will have to get back on track defensively. The normally stout defense made some costly mistakes that gave Cincinnati the edge in the series, including a season-high tying five errors in Sunday's 6-4 loss.

"With such poor defense on the weekend, we didn't deserve to win," Penders said bluntly after Sunday's loss.

After the weekend, the Huskies have now committed the fourth-most errors in the Big East at 44 on the season. If you take those nine errors away, the Huskies would instead be tied with Cincinnati for third-fewest in the conference.

The defensive struggle translated into a negative effect on the bats, according to Penders.

"We were just playing tentative, even tentative with the bats after making the errors," Penders said. "We had some of our worst at-bats, check-swing early in the count, check-swing and not getting the pitches and driving them. Looking tentative at the plate too - just impatient."

While the Huskies were getting hits in the games (they batted .276 over the series, right around their .278 mark for the season), they were unable to string enough together in situations with men on base and in scoring position against Cincinnati's pitchers.

Continued...

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