Ready for battle: baseball sneak peek

Despite being picked to finish seventh in Conference USA, The University of Memphis baseball team is ready to go to battle as they begin spring practice today.

For head coach Daron Schoenrock and the Tigers, being ranked seventh out of nine teams is nothing to worry about in a league as strong as C-USA.

 "You don't pay a lot of attention to early rankings," Schoenrock said. "The guys that have been through the wars before, our upperclassmen, know that every day is a grind, and every game is a battle in this league."

Along with the preseason rankings, the league also released the selections for its 2012 All-Conference squad.

Senior third baseman Jacob Wilson was named to the preseason All-C-USA team, the only Tiger to receive that recognition. For Wilson, the honor is an incentive to work harder during the regular season.

"It's an honor to be recognized on that team," Wilson said. "It makes me feel good, but at the same time it's preseason. That's going to help other players go out and compete for that award at the end of the year. It's going to make me compete even harder."

With four starting pitchers returning this season, the Tigers will hope to find success on the mound. Schoenrock said he has already seen improvement in the starting rotation and the bullpen.

"I think the pitching staff in general—the elevation of who the top 12 are—they're all better. They've all improved," Schoenrock said.

Conference USA will again be competitive this season as C-USA rival Rice will begin the season ranked seventh in the USA Today/ESPN Top 25 coaches' poll. Southern Mississippi and East Carolina also received votes.

"Baseball is probably the strongest sport in this league," Schoenrock said.

"Three of the teams ahead of us have been to Omaha in the College World Series in the last ten years or so."

Overall, the Tigers return 18 letter-winning players and lose ten, including former team leaders Chad Zurcher and Drew Martinez. Both Zurcher and Martinez were selected by Major League Baseball teams in the 2011 draft.

With 13 newcomers to the roster, the 2012 team will have a lot of youth. Wilson said that the new players coming in are talented enough to make up for the losses, and the returning upperclassmen will help lead the team on the field.

"We've got a lot of young kids that are coming in this year, and talent-wise they played extremely well in the fall," he said. "We do have a lot of returning guys, so we have experience at the plate when it comes to game situations."

Opening day for the Tigers will be against Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville at FedExPark on South Campus. Schoenrock said, at this point in the season, working through spring practice is the first priority.

"Early in the season, you don't really know that much about each other, you just try to beat the game," he said.