The Florida Atlantic Blue Wave baseball team’s season is coming to a head. The team has one series left before the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament begins May 26 in Deland, when they play Mercer.
With FAU’s record of 36-13 and Mercer’s 18-30, this series should just be a warm up for the upcoming tournament.
Where the collar starts to get a little tight is that the Blue Wave, picked to finish first in the conference, is currently third and has only one sweep of an A-Sun opponent all year.
The struggles FAU has had with A-Sun opponents have effected their standing in the national polls as the team has dropped from 10th to out of the polls throughout the season. This fall shows the respect the national polls have for the A-Sun teams, but more importantly it puts the Blue Wave in a very tough spot.
The team played #4 Miami last night and now must either win the A-Sun tournament or hope for an at-large bid into the College baseball playoffs. The only guarantee is for the Blue Wave to win the conference and they will be invited to a Regional. Sure this seems a little absurd for a team that can conceivably have over 40 wins by the season’s end but it is the predicament they have played themselves into.
The Blue Wave has had a stellar non-conference season sweeping FIU, beating teams such as Minnesota and Winthrop, while also hanging tough with Notre Dame. The problem materialized when conference play started and FAU was unable to sweep some of the lower opponents they faced. Losing a game to Jacksonville and Campbell was bad, but it became worse when the team lost two of three to Gardner-Webb.
Hitting has been a small contributor to the team’s situation. Although they score a lot of runs in certain games, the team has not been consistent throughout the season. What hurts worse is that hitting was supposed to be the team’s strong point.
Another factor has been injuries. Seniors Robert Orton and Rusty Brown have missed considerable amounts of time forcing freshman to step in and make an impact. The result, although good overall, has seen its growing pains.
But enough with the negative.
FAU is coming off what would be its biggest win of the season in Miami, Wednesday night and is gearing up for the tournament. Everyone is healthy and since the goal of the team is to make it to Omaha for the College World Series, the players should be fired up to win the tournament.
I guess the season should be looked at as a bright spot since some people were wondering how the Blue Wave could get motivated to win the tournament instead of getting an at-large bid. Well, if this isn’t motivation I don’t know what is.
Don’t make plans for Omaha yet, but it might be worth your while to spend a weekend in Deland to see the Blue Wave crash a party they have been passing up for a couple of years.
