Pitching, defense propel Bison to hot start

Southern Union head baseball coach Joe Jordan has a pretty strong opinion of what the source of his team’s success is. And you won’t see him pointing at himself as that source.

Now in his 18th season at the helm of the Bison program, Jordan’s been around long enough to know who gets the credit.

“It’s the ball players,” he says. “Any coach that thinks they’re the reason why they’re winning, they need to have a bad year and they’ll know that it’s the ball players that win the games.”

In large part because of those players, the Bison are currently riding an eight-game winning streak. They have won 19 of their first 22 games, and at 9-0 in conference play they have a 2-game lead in the ACCC central division heading into this weekend’s match-up with second place Chattahoochee Valley.

Jordan pegs the leadership of sophomores like Patrick Reeves, Lane Hammond and pitcher Johnny Thompson as the reason his team has gotten off to such a fast start.

“They make sure everybody does their work in practice,” he says. “They’ve really helped, and they’ve made other guys kind of jump on board and do the work, and that’s what’s making our team get better and better.”

But while Jordan is more aware of the intangibles, you don’t have to look far into the numbers to see why SU has been stockpiling wins as if they fear a shortage.

For SU it all starts with pitching. And for starters, you’d be hard pressed to find a better starting trio than Thompson, Mark Power and Clay Hamm. They have a combined record of 10-1 and the highest ERA among the three (Hamm’s) is 1.71.

Thompson (4-0, 1.12 ERA) is clearly the ace of the staff. He has allowed just 13 hits and five earned runs in 35 and 2/3 innings of work, including his first no-hitter of the season in an 11-0 win over Wallace-Selma in his most recent start on Saturday.

With Power (4-0, 1.08 ERA) being just as effective, it’s easy to see why opposing teams are sweating the Bison. And we haven’t even mentioned closer Timmy Morgan yet.

The rubber-armed reliever has appeared in 12 of SU’s 22 games and posted a 4-0 record with a 1.35 ERA and two saves.

“Our pitching has really done a good job this year,” said Jordan. “Any time you get good pitching and play good defense, you’re going to be in the ballgame.”

Just being in the ballgame has been a moot point most of the season due to the efficiency of the SU offense. Make no mistake, though. You won’t see a Bison version of the bash brothers bumping forearms at home plate after a deluge of long balls. Former Handley standout Gus Jones leads the team with two. And that accounts for one third of the team’s total on the season.

But what you will see is a base-hitting, base-stealing, first-and-third offense that can put up some big numbers in a hurry. Of the Bison’s 246 hits on the season only 42 of them have been for extra bases. So the Bison have had to resort to getting their extra bases the old fashioned way – by stealing them. As a team the Bison are 55-for-57 in the stolen base department, led by third-baseman Patrick Reeves’ seven.

And while there may not be a ton of long balls, these guys can definitely hit. Chase Burch is the first name in the SU offense, and he has been red hot of late. He entered last Saturday’s double header against Selma with a .589 batting average then went 5-for-5 with eight (!) RBI in the first game to raise it to a mind-boggling .623. Burch leads the team and the conference with 29 RBI on the season and has stroked 12 doubles and a home run among his 38 hits. While his gaudy numbers stand out, they are not alone. Jesse Harrison (.525), Reeves (.397, 13 RBI), Lane Hammond (.375) and Travis Calloway (.367, 12 RBI) all have shown clutch hitting that makes the SU lineup potent throughout.

At 19-3 the Bison have completed roughly one third of the season.

“We’ve still got a long ways to go, and we’ve got a lot of teams to play,” said Jordan.

But he knows that if his team can keep up this torrid pace then there could be some very good things in store for them when it’s all said and done.

“It’ll be up to them,” he said. “If they keep working the way they’ve worked up until this point, they’ll have a chance to be a great team.”