Penn State baseball players, coach ‘want to make some noise’ in 2016 season

Penn State head baseball coach Rob Cooper and two of his players, both experienced leaders on his team, echoed the same sentiment during Monday’s Spring Sports Media Day.

“The overall excitement and energy that we’ve seen, whether it was (on the team’s historic offseason trip to Cuba) or whether it’s been in Holuba practices just these last few weeks, it’s been different this year,” said senior closer Jack Anderson. “I’ve said it before, but you can see the energy and excitement around the team, around the guys. We’re trying to do something different this year, we’re trying to do something special, we’re trying to make some noise in the Big Ten.”

The team is coming off an 18-30 record in its 2015 campaign and a 6-16 record in the conference. It also has a heavy influx of new faces; 11 freshmen have entered the program and are fighting to contribute.

“I think, first of all, the upperclassmen have done a great job of bringing those guys into the fold,” said Cooper, who added that some freshmen might be ready to play immediately — and the team certainly has a few openings for younger players to step up.

Shortstop Jim Haley was the team’s hitting leader in conference play last season but still feels he is having to battle to keep his spot. He said Willie Burger, Conlin Hughes and Connor Klemann are “all studs” and have pushed him.

“I have a lot of competition,” he said. “They’re competin’ with me for my spot. They’re pushing me every day.”

Cooper said he was honest with his team when the year started, and told them that anyone had the opportunity to win any job — and he’s been impressed with how his team improved by embracing the competition.

Penn State played some fall ball against Lock Haven, then four games in Cuba and has amassed 27 innings of intrasquad play in Holuba Hall and on the fields at Lasch. They may be starting to get their feet under them a bit and put bats on balls, but Cooper said he still hasn’t finalized the lineup or rotation out of fairness to some younger talent.

“It’s not that I’m trying to keep it a secret, it’s just that there are some guys that are really fighting like crazy to try to maybe make an impact or be a starter at this position or not,” he said. “But I will tell you that there’s going to be some guys that are going to be young who will get a chance to play. Because you have to, you gotta get ’em in there and find out what they can do.

“I think it’s actually good that I don’t know what the lineup is right now. Because these (older) guys have done a really good job of making the younger guys feel a part of this thing.”

What he does feel better about is the development of his pitching corps. Where last year Cooper had to send in Anderson to close out a game in as early as the fourth inning, this season he thinks some pressure could be taken off his top reliever.

“You have to give him a lot of credit for being able to take the role he has,” said Cooper. “The ideal would be to give him the ball at the end of the eighth inning or the ninth inning and have him have at it and shut it down. Because of where we’ve been sometimes, and the trust level we have in him. ... That’s hard to do.

“The other part of it is, we have to pitch better from a starting rotation,” said Cooper. “But I think if you dig a little bit deeper than that ... I mean Taylor Lehman and Nick Distasio were true freshmen. ... And the Big Ten last year had five teams go to the NCAA Tournament. It’s a good conference. When you’re a true freshman and you’re making starts against those guys, you have to go through those lumps and learn about it.

“I think the fact that we have some experience of guys doing that, we have experience of guys having the ball where it matters, getting the guy through the fifth or sixth (inning), and then having the depth where hopefully we don’t need to bring (Anderson) in in the fourth or fifth just to keep it close, you know, just being better defensively will make us a better pitching staff.”

Big Ten play starts in late March for Penn State with a three-game road series at Illinois and then a home series versus Purdue to open the first weekend in April, but the biggest name on the team’s schedule is a home series against powerhouse TCU, which comes to Medlar Field May 6-8.

Cooper wants to put the matchup in perspective, however.

“It’s a big deal to get Medlar Field rockin’ and have a College World Series-type program coming here, but I don’t want that to be the highlight of our season, the fact that we have them on the schedule,” he said.

“Our No. 1 thing is to beat Monmouth right now. I know that sounds really cliche, but every coach talks about the process, one pitch at a time, one game at a time, things like that. But honestly, it’s the difference, where we are right now sitting here with this group of guys and their leadership to this point is that you can actually feel the guys understand what the process is.”

Penn State opens its season against Monmouth in Cary, N.C., as a part of the USA Baseball Complex Tournament on Feb. 19, and doesn’t play its first home game until March 18, a home series against Niagara.

This story was originally published February 8, 2016 at 2:44 PM with the headline "Penn State baseball players, coach ‘want to make some noise’ in 2016 season."