Holbrook's divulges never-before-known information to his team
South Carolina was in a bit of a free-fall offensively. After managing only eight hits through the first two games against Texas A&M this weekend, the team was in need of a much-needed morale boost.
To try and remedy that poor offensive output, head coach Chad Holbrook called his team in for a pre-game talk before Sunday’s batting practice.
“He called us in before we went out for BP to let us know to relax, stop pressing and just play the game we’ve played our whole lives,” junior pitcher Josh Reagan said.
But it was a little more than that, too. Trying to show the players how much they’ve already accomplished (surpassing last year’s total and SEC wins), Holbrook said he divulged some information not usually given out to his teams at all.
“Before every season, I write a prediction on how many games we’re going to win overall and how many games we’ll win in the league,” he said. “I put it in an envelope, I seal it and wait until the end of the season. I let the cat out of the bag today; I told them—I usually don’t tell anyone, but I told them. I wanted to tell them because they exceeded my expectations.”
It seemed to have worked, at least for Sunday’s game, as the Gamecocks strung together 10 hits in a 10-7 win to take a game from the Aggies. In his talk, he mentioned a similar situation from the 2010 National Championship team and how it could apply this year.
“I told them that we went through a terrible rut to end the season: we lost a home series to Florida, went 0-and-two in the SEC Tournament and were losing at home to Bucknell 5-to-1,” he said. “Think about that scenario. That’s a lot worse of a scenario than that team’s in.”
South Carolina will host Citadel in its final home game of the regular season before traveling to Alabama for a three-game series with the Crimson Tide to close out the regular season.
The effect of the talk will be seen during those games if the Gamecocks are able to piece together hits like they did Sunday, but right now the team is enjoying the feeling of being rewarded for hitting the ball hard.
“I don’t know if the talk had anything to do with it, probably not. That’s giving the coach too much credit.” Holbrook said. “I wanted them to enjoy the game because they’d done some nice things.”
Not a GamecockCentral.com member and want to get all the scoop? SUBSCRIBE NOW!
Never miss a moment with the GamecockCentral app: App Store - Google Play
