Sitting at .500 with a 4-4 record, the Ball State University baseball team will be heading to one of the Carolinas next on its annual trip around the South.
The Cardinals will be in Conway, S.C. for three games this weekend against two teams. On Friday they will play Long Island University followed by Saturday and Sunday matchups against Coastal Carolina University. The games are part of the Springmaid Beach Resort Tournament and will be the first time this season Ball State will have to prepare for two opponents in the same weekend, something coach Greg Beals said would be an added challenge.
"It puts you in a tournament format where you just play game to game," he said. "The first two weekends we could play a game and then read through our scouting report and put together a different game plan."
While the Cardinals didn't play Long Island last season, they did play Coastal Carolina. The Cardinals were shut out in that game 5-0.
As a freshman in that game Kory Benbow, one of the Cardinals' starting outfielders, had two hits to lead the team along with Matt Stoeklin.
Benbow said compared to the game against Coastal Carolina last year, he can now see better as a hitter.
"The game has slowed down a lot," he said. "I'm seeing pitches better, thinking more at the plate, thinking about counts, using our scouting reports better."
In seven games this year, Benbow is hitting .429 with 14 runs, 11 RBIs, and two home runs. The outfielder credits the year of experience he had last year to his increase in production.
"I think being a year older has really helped," Benbow said. "I know it's helped me and there's a lot of other guys it's helped [on the team]."
Following the three games this weekend, the team will play at Charleston Southern University Tuesday and Wednesday and then play four games the next weekend as part of the Centex Home Invitational.
Playing nine games in a 10-day span may seem like a tiresome task, but Beals said he doesn't expect it to be.
"It shouldn't really be tiring," he said. "The only thing would be if a guy gets injured, he wouldn't have a whole lot of time to rest it."
Beals compared it playing professional baseball.
"No school to worry about - just playing baseball for 10 days," he said. "This is one of those fun weeks in college baseball."
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