SAN ANGELO, Texas — The Angelo State University baseball team advanced to the second round of the Lone Star Conference Championship tournament.
The second-seeded Rams will play sixth-seeded Lubbock Christian University at 6 p.m. Thursday at Foster Field. ASU grabbed the opportunity to host the second round after top-seeded West Texas A&M University lost to St. Edward’s University in the opening round last weekend.
Rams head coach Kevin Brooks is enjoying the team's success so far.
“Right now I feel really good about everything and how we're playing," Brooks said. "Our pitching has been great, our depth has really stepped up. Offensively we've been swinging the bats real well and we've been good defensively. We just want to keep being us, doing what we do best and continue winning games.”
Angelo State is 2-2 against Lubbock Christian which is the Rams' toughest competition on paper. ASU is known for getting ahead early on opponents and finishing strong. Brooks said there have been times where they’ve had slower starts.
“We were having trouble getting going for about five to six innings and we've done a lot better job with that here lately," Brooks said. "Hopefully we'll put the pedal to the metal from the start and go out, shutting them down early and to keep scoring runs.”
The Rams have secured three tournament titles and have made eight finals appearances. ASU won the tournament championship in 2007, 2012, and 2015. Brooks hopes to keep this energy going.
“This is obviously a huge tournament for us and we want to get on obviously hosting regionals next week and we dang sure want to be a part of it," Brooks said. "We need to go play well, hopefully win this thing and then hope we have a huge crowd this weekend to help us do it. Hopefully we get another huge crowd next weekend to help us get back to carrying.”
Brooks hopes to win out the LSC tournament in order to get an automatic bid into the NCAA Division II South-Central Regional Tournament.