The West Texas A&M baseball team split a three game series this past weekend with TAMUK in a race for first in the conference. The Buffs are currently half a game behind first place TAMUK, though TAMUK has won the season series against WT, meaning that they will have the tiebreaker if they and WT find their conference records tied at the end of the regular season. The race for the regular season conference title is a tight one, with Angelo State also being only a half a game behind WT and a game behind TAMUK.

Since pulling within a game behind TAMUK, WT has been playing with a ton of confidence and playing their best baseball of the season down the stretch.

“I think we’re playing our best baseball. We’re not trying to get caught up in the race to the end of the season too much,” Ben Buck, assistant baseball coach and pitching coach, said. “It’s hard because they see it. You know, the guys see everything and they want to see who’s winning and who’s losing, but we’re trying to keep them focused on the game at hand, and especially our offense who is really starting to buy into the approaches they didn’t necessarily have the first part of the year, and I think we hit .375 on the weekend.”

Junior infielder Trace Hansen also commented on the team’s confidence at the plate since the first part of the year and what has changed since that time for the team.

“I think we just try to keep it simple. I think the first part of the season, we were trying to do too much, but now we’re just really buying into what the coaches have preached all year, and it’s working so we just need to keep at it.”

Along with the offense buying into the approaches of their coaches, the Buffs have been good on the mound also, having a season ERA of 3.16 which is good for second best in the conference behind ASU. They are also tied for batting average against only allowing a .243 average for opposing batters on the year.

“Those guys have been quality all year, and those guys have been starting for us and it really just adds our fourth starter to the bullpen, but it does that with everyone in our conference and it kind of levels the playing field, and we thought we were a little bit deeper anyways, and those three guys will really be our workhorses for the rest of the year,” Buck said.

The Buffs now go on to face the last place Eastern New Mexico Greyhounds in a three game series in Portales, N.M.