As USC rushed the field at Jackie Robinson Stadium to celebrate its sweep of UCLA baseball, the Bruins were at a potential turning point in their season.
Where do they go from here? Do they sink or swim?
Coach John Savage could have yelled at his players after blowing a four-run lead on Saturday, but instead he chose to invoke the teachings of John Wooden and let cooler heads prevail. He could have punished them with a hard day of practice on Sunday, but chose to give them a day off to help them get their minds right.
“You can’t really dwell on the past,” said junior catcher Shane Zeile. “Part of Coach’s speech was it’s all water under the bridge now. We just got to move on and learn from it.”
UCLA (22-19, 9-9 Pac-12) will start this process by turning its attention to UC Santa Barbara (26-11) on Tuesday afternoon. The teams will face off for the second time this season, as the Gauchos will look to sweep the season series on their home turf, where they are 17-5 on the season.
“They have played well at home. We saw them here and they beat us here,” Savage said. “I know they’re not doing that well in league, but I know that their RPI is very good (and) they’ve had a good overall record, so it will be a good opportunity for us (to bounce back).”
With UCLA’s playoff hopes potentially on the line in the coming weeks, the team knows that it has to turn things around if it wants an opportunity to defend its national championship in the postseason.
“You gotta win games,” Savage said. “We’re at a stage critically in the season that you gotta win games.”
Knowing this only intensifies the magnitude of each game, which is why it was crucial for the Bruins to get their minds straight before coming back to practice on Monday.
“Each game is like a playoff mentality for us. It doesn’t matter if we are facing Santa Barbara, we just got to go out there and play our game,” said sophomore outfielder Ty Moore. “We just got to do what we do best.”
After struggling to score in the first two games of the series against the Trojans, the Bruins found an offense approach that worked for them on Saturday, as they doubled the output of runs that they scored on Thursday and Friday.
“Some balls didn’t drop but I thought we did a good job,” Savage said. “I guess you could say we didn’t score enough runs, but we had a better approach and we had some good at bats.”
Even with their backs up against the wall, the players aren’t just going to fold. They still believe that they are in contention for the postseason.
“People might be counting us out, but I know we trust in each other. I think we still got a pretty good shot at this,” Moore said. “We just got to play our game and I think we’ll be at where we want to be at the end of the year.”