After two weeks without a game, including four cancelled games, the Bowling Green baseball team steps back on dirt this weekend.

Opening the season with a win, the Falcons followed it up with two losses to finish their opening series.

“Opening series, first time in three months, I was very pleased with the effort and the way that we played,” said head coach Danny Schmitz. “Obviously you’d like to win series but to win the first game 7-6, I thought we had a great approach with the bats.”

“Our bats were alive, a tremendous difference from last year. I felt like our hitting started out on a role,” said pitcher

Andrew Lacinak.

Now, BG looks to keep its bats rolling against Eastern Kentucky in a 3-game series. However, the weather forced another change as the series will take place in Emerson, Georgia at the LakePoint facility instead of EKU’s home facility.

The Colonels hold an advantage over the Falcons in that they’ve been able to stay on the field consistently in the early part of the season.

In the past week EKU has played five games while BG hasn’t taken

the field.

“It’s like opening weekend all over again,” Schmitz said. “It’s always difficult being a northern team because we don’t have the luxury of getting outside, but the more reps we can get outside, that’s when the development stage starts taking place.”

EKU [3-4] finished its seventh game of the season on Wednesday, while notching all of its three wins at the LakePoint facility a week ago.

This lack of game-action has not tempered the Falcons’ intensity.

“We played hard [in the first series]. We have a young team, but we were pretty scrappy,” said senior second baseman Brandon Howard. “Having energy [and] playing hard is going to be very key for us. All of those first-game jitters are out of the way. We have a lot of freshmen, so for them to get out there and play well the first weekend was good.”

However, the Falcons aren’t content with just maintaining the high energy they displayed in the first series. Instead, they have continuously simulated real-game scenarios with caged games, Lacinak said.

“That’s the best thing for our hitters to do, just to see live pitching and for our pitchers to see live hitting,” he said.

BG is hoping that this simulation of real-game scenarios will translate into actual live action.

However, despite the encouraging signs from the first three games, the team understands that the work they’ve begun to put in is just the beginning.

“’Do we have to get better?’ No doubt about,” Schmitz said. “We have a lot to work on. We need improvement in

all phases.”

The road to improvement begins Friday, Feb. 27 at 11 a.m. in a doubleheader against EKU.

“I know the guys are excited about getting back out on the field again, and I certainly am,”

Schmitz said.

We just need to stay within in ourselves and work on situational baseball, he said.

“I know it’s hard after being off last weekend, but carrying the energy, keeping our bats alive from the first weekend and keeping up the momentum will be key,” Lacinak said.