As the first weekend of the Southern baseball season came to a close, the Lions (4-0) walked off the diamond touting the first accomplishment of a long season ahead.  The Lions took an undefeated record home after a dominant sweep of Minnesota Crookston, and as the Lions move forward they believe week one was just the building block they needed.

“Every year is a new team, same goals, but we kind of have to build a chemistry every season,” said senior Ryan Bates.  “I think we did that this fall and it’s going to reflect on the field.”

Up next for the Lions are the first MIAA contests of the year, starting off against Lincoln, a team, much like Minn. Crookston, that had a difficult year throughout the 2013 campaign, finishing with a mediocre 7-33 record.

This season has not started much better for the Lincoln squad, it lost its first two games of the year after having the eight previous games canceled due to weather.  Both teams hope that will not be a factor this weekend as the Lions get set to play away from their home soil for the first time of the new season.

“We just need to take the confidence from this weekend and carry it over to the conference opener,” said senior Drew Noble.  “We just need to play solid D and hit the baseball.”

The home field for Lincoln has been anything but menacing in recent years, but Southern knows that to win in the MIAA intangibles and execution are the key weapons in their arsenal.

“It’s still early in the year so we have to make the simple plays and do the little things right,” said Bates.  “We will unwind some later on in the year once we discover how we play together and what our game is.”

The first weekend was a live display of what the Lions are capable of as a ball team, tallying double digits in three of the first four games on the way to scoring 40 runs in total.  Impressive, yes, but compared to the seven runs they allowed, it rivals unbelievable, and as the Lions move on to MIAA play, they believe this is just a sign of things to come.

“I think it’s definitely a good sign with the team collectively playing so well this past weekend,” said junior Brandon Weller.  “We know that the road is only going to get tougher getting into MIAA play.”

Southern was paced by the starting pitching performances of seniors David Reese, Bates and Noble, as well as sophomore Payton Walker, who all managed to grab their important first victories of the season with each pitching at least five innings.  Key statistics for a team relying on their pitching pedigree, but as the Lions creep into the early stages of conference competition the team looks to continue getting better.

“Pitching, we need to get ahead of hitters and minimize walks,” said Reese.  “Fielding, we need to make less errors, but our bats were on fire.”

Southern hits the road, heading to Jefferson City to face the Blue Tigers in the second series of the year, this time against an MIAA  foe.