The 2015 season opener for the Saints baseball team was one game that did not turn out the way they hoped. Seward fell to McCook Community College in a close game, 4-3, bringing the first loss of the season.

“It may have been one of the most disappointing games that I have ever been involved with to start the season.” said Head coach Galen McSpadden. “I felt that we made a lot of mistakes and that we weren’t ready to play. I don’t know what attributes that. We had been outside quite a few times. We have had several inter-squad games and we had looked pretty good up until then. But the bell rang Friday and we didn’t really answer it.”

While McCook took the early lead and went up 3-0 by the top of the third, Seward scored once in the third, fourth and the sixth to make it even. The game stayed even until the top of the ninth. That is when McCook scored a run that led them to their first victory of the season.

It was the little mistakes here and there that added to the first loss for the Saints.

McSpadden said, “I felt that we didn’t compete defensively. We made some errors and mistakes that should not have happened.”

McSpadden mentioned that the Saints did a poor job of base running along with bad blundering mistakes on the bases.

On every run that McCook scored, the Saints had two outs and two strikes on the hitter. Yet the necessary pitches were not made when they were needed. Coach McSpadden also felt that they didn’t compete at the plate. I didn’t feel that we competed at the plate.

Before the season opener, the Saints were named the favorite to win the Jayhawk West conference. This season’s team includes 11 sophomores along with six starters returning from last year.

“We got picked earlier to win the conference in the West, and I can tell you that the way we played opening day was not indicative of a team deserving of that choice,” McSpadden said. But that also says a lot, because that was picked by the coaches we play against in the conference. They have seen us play, they have seen who we have personnel wise, and so they are expecting us to do that. Well, we are going to expect that, too.”

Seward will now look to the weekend where they will play four games against the Galveston Whitecaps.

“The good side is as poorly as we played, it was still a one run game,” McSpadden said.  “And it’s the first game of the year so the only way that I could see it is that it’s going up. Hopefully that won’t be the indication of more to come. But we look forward to what we are going to have this weekend. We travel to Dallas and we play Galveston four tough ball games. One Friday night, Saturday double header, and Sunday a single game. They have played two games… so we are going to be two teams right out of the chute.”

Going into games, McSpadden looks to eliminate mistakes in every aspect. He wants the team to keep the errors to a minimum, make less base run mistakes and be more aggressive at the plate in order to square up on more balls.

“We are expecting far more than what we showed out of the first game, far more,” McSpadden said.

The next home game for the Saints will be Feb. 14 against Northeastern Junior College from Sterling, Colo.