Hounds aim to shock LSC

PORTALES — Of this Friday’s Eastern New Mexico baseball season opener one could say, “ENMU Greyhounds, come on down!”

After all, the Hounds are going to find out this season if the Price is right.

Riley Price was hired last summer to replace David Gomez, who had stepped down in May. Price, who grew up in Kansas, has played junior college and Division II college baseball, has coached in a collegiate summer baseball league and in the Lone Star Conference for Angelo State, and has done some recruiting.

Price begins his first season as Eastern’s head coach on Friday against one of his former employers, Angelo State, in San Angelo, Texas, looking to greatly improve on last year’s 15-33 record. And he likes his team’s chances of doing that based on what he’s seen so far in preseason.

“It’s going really good,” Price said after a Saturday-afternoon practice in warm, sunny weather at Greyhound Baseball Field. “We had a chance to scrimmage Lubbock Christian (last Friday) and we played them really tight. We took the lead early, had a few troubles with a few relievers that ended up coming in, but other than that we played them really good and had a few big innings there, which was good to see. We frustrated them on the basepaths a little bit because we were very aggressive early, and that’s what we have to do if we’re going to be a good team, run the basepaths with a lot of energy. We’re going to create some havoc out there.”

“We’ve got a whole new coaching staff, brand new culture. It’s going a lot better than last year, for sure,” redshirt sophomore pitcher Ethan Coombes said. “Every time you come to practice everyone’s doing something. We’re all finding a way to get better all the time, and people are holding each other accountable more now.”

“Things have been going very well,” fifth-year senior outfielder Malcolm Smith said. “We have a pretty good team chemistry here, everything’s pretty organic. … We’ve got a lot of new things going on, new coaching staff. … It’s been a blessing. I’m the only fifth-year here on the team, so I’ve seen a lot in this Eastern New Mexico program. And they’ve changed a lot here, they’ve changed the culture with a plan of action that it’s our job to execute.”

Smith is slated to play center field and bat leadoff. The rest of the batting order will likely be: redshirt junior second baseman Trevor Moses; senior third baseman Joseph Zubia; freshman designated hitter Rio Granger; senior catcher Ryan Anderson; freshman first baseman James Romero; redshirt junior shortstop Daniel Hunt; senior left fielder Blake Frye; sophomore rightfielder Alex Kuhn; and then whomever the pitcher is in a given game.

“So far we’re looking really solid,” Coombes said. “Defensively I think we have one of the best teams probably the school’s ever seen, definitely the best since I’ve been here. And offensively, against Lubbock Christian (Friday) we did really well and we held our own. That’s a top-three team in our conference supposedly, and we played really well against them.”

This year’s Eastern team will try to succeed by scrapping out a lot of its runs, according to Price.

“It would be nice to have more power,” he said. “We have some, but we’re not going to rely on it. We have to rely on keeping our strikeouts low and stealing a lot of bags, playing a little small ball. Everybody needs to know how to bunt, and we’ve worked on that quite a bit, so we’re going to use that to our strength. And have an approach to where we can drive the ball to all fields. Any time we can get our speed on second and third I think we’re going to have a really good opportunity to score.”

Last week’s Lone Star Conference preseason poll was not favorable to the Greyhounds, projecting them at 14th place. That alone is motivation for Eastern.

Will the Hounds’ prove the prognosticators wrong? Will the Greyhounds reach the Showcase Showdown of the LSC Tournament? Or will the preseason pollsters be correct and the Eastern season be like the Price Is Right’s Alpine mountain climber yodeling off a cliff?

The Greyhounds, of course, expect to earn the former scenario for themselves.

“That preseason poll is really a slap in our face,” Smith said. “I don’t think we’re a 14th-place team; I’m pretty sure we proved that (Friday). We have a lot to work on, and a lot of bright things to come.”

“I think we can do a lot,” Coombes said. “I think we can definitely make the tournament this year and possibly win it. We’re going to have a good test against Angelo; they’re defending conference champions and won 50 games last year.”

“I think the sky’s the limit,” Price said. “Just by seeing what we can do when we put all the facets of the game together, I think we can surprise people this year.”