Day 1 Regional Recap | Tyler Jay/Illinois Feature
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The Ohio University Bobcats didn’t come into this weekend’s NCAA Division-I Regional Tournament at the University of Illinois with any allusions of grandeur. They were accepting of their No. 4 seed at a regional that included Big Ten regular season champion and No. 6 national seed Illinois, Atlantic Coast Conference at-large entrant Notre Dame and Horizon League Tournament champion Wright State University.
But the Bobcats also weren’t feeling in anyway inferior – quite the opposite in fact. They were feeling good after winning the Mid-American Tournament championship a week earlier, were especially proud that they were the National Tournament qualifier with the biggest turnaround in terms of wins and losses from last year to this year.
This head coach Rob Smith’s third season at Ohio, which is located in picturesque Athens, Ohio. The baseball program at the school made 14 appearances in the NCAA Tournament between 1948 and 1997 – the 1970 Bobcats team advanced to the College World Series – but has endured hard times in the last 18 years. 1997 was the last year Ohio had won a MAC championship and advanced to an NCAA regional until this year.
Smith’s first two Ohio teams didn’t show much of a pulse. The Bobcats finished 14-39 (9-18 MAC) in 2013 and then sank to the abyss last season with records of 11-40, 7-20. This year’s Bobcats arrived here Thursday with an overall record of 36-19 (17-10 MAC regular season, 3rd place), an improvement of 25 wins from a year ago.
“I was telling my parents this week that is the most fun I’ve had playing baseball in my whole entire life, just because of the struggles we went through the last two years,” senior right-handed reliever Logan Cozart told Perfect Game. “We came in and (qualified for) the MAC Tournament my freshman year and then the last two years were just pretty lousy. So to get to this point with the same guys that were around for those two years, it means a lot to us.”
Cozart, a 6-foot-2, 215-pound converted infielder from New Philadelphia, Ohio, had quite the turn-around himself and was named the MAC Pitcher of the Year. His teammate, sophomore outfielder Mitch Longo from Mayfield, Ohio, also collected a prestigious regular-season honor when he was named MAC Player of the Year.
“It’s an incredible feeling, especially after what we’ve gone through in previous seasons and last year especially,” Longo told PG. “To come this far and win the MAC championship and to be able to play in front of this many people on this big of a stage in a regional, it’s just incredible.”
Being saddled with the No. 4 seed meant Ohio had to face No.1 seed and host school Illinois in its tournament opener Friday night. The night started well enough when the Bobcats jumped to a 2-1 lead after 1 ½ innings, powered by a second-inning solo home run from John Adryan off of Illini ace Kevin Duchene. Illinois came back with five its own in the bottom of the second en route to a convincing 10-3 victory.
“This team’s been resilient all year; we’ve bounced back quickly,” Smith told reporters after the loss while looking ahead to Saturday. “We’ve had games where we’ve played poorly and bounced back … and played extremely well, so I’m not concerned about their psyche. … We are going to hit the reset button and come out tomorrow and expect that something good is going to happen for us.”
The weather denied the Bobcats the opportunity to display their resiliency Saturday afternoon. Their elimination game against No. 3 Wright State got under way and WSU had built a 5-2 lead through two innings when a heavy rain began soaking Illinois Field. The game was temporarily suspended at 1 p.m. and officials finally suspended it for the day at 5 p.m. It will be resumed at 11 a.m. on Sunday with SWU leading 5-2 in the top of the third.
Before the season even got under way in March, Cozart, Longo and their teammates reached the conclusion that the attitude surrounding the program had to change for the better. They set modest goals, like .500 records both overall and in league play, but even early-on they started to feel they might be aiming too low. That’s when they came up with their mantra for the season: “Something good is about to happen.”
“Even towards the end of the season last year, we started winning a few more games,” Longo said. “In the fall we did really well and we kind of realized we were actually a lot better than we thought we could be. We built up a little bit of confidence and then after we started out 6-0 at the beginning of the year, we thought to ourselves that we’re pretty good and we can make a run at this thing.”
It happened right out of the chute. As Longo noted, the Bobcats began the non-conference part of the season with six straight wins, lost four straight to fall back to 6-4 and then won four more in a row to improve to 10-4. They were 11-6 heading into their first three-game MAC series at Central Michigan, and after a loss at Ohio State on March 31 dropped their overall record to 14-12, they rallied to win 13 of their next 17, including 10 of 14 in MAC play.
Ohio rolled into the MAC Tournament in Avon, Ohio, having won five-of-six games. The Bobcats promptly took care of Bowling Green in the opener, beat Western Michigan and then Bowling Green again, this time on the first nine-inning no-hitter in MAC Tournament history, thrown by junior right-hander Connor Sitz. They then beat Ball State in the championship game and came into the NCAA Regional having won nine-of-10.
“There were some times when we had our struggles – its baseball and you’re going to have ups-and-downs – but we don’t let that kind of stuff bother us,” Cozart said. “If we’re down three runs in the seventh, eighth, ninth (innings), ‘Something good is about to happen’ is what we’ll say. We just tough it out, and if it doesn’t (happen) we’ll bounce back the next day and get after it.”
Cozart’s personal turnaround surpasses that of the team as a whole. He was an infielder as a freshman in 2012 and hit .301 in 25 games with three home runs and 14 RBI. Smith took over the program before the 2013 season, saw something in Cozart’s arm and converted him to a relief pitcher.
In his sophomore season in 2013, Cozart finished 0-3 with two saves in 22 appearances covering 28 1/3 innings. He surrendered 18 earned runs on 33 hits (5.72 ERA), struck out 27 and walked 12. Last year, his junior season, was worse. He pitched 30 1/3 innings in 30 appearances, and gave up 25 earned runs on 37 hits and 13 walks, good for a 7.42 ERA. He finished 0-1 without a save but did strikeout 39 batters.
Night, introduce yourself to day. Cozart came into this weekend’s regional 7-1 with 13 saves and a 1.36 ERA, having allowed 10 earned runs in 66 1/3 innings with 79 strikeouts and 23 walks.
“Logan has made just a tremendous improvement over what he did last year,” Smith said. “He went really from just another guy on our pitching staff to the MAC Pitcher of the Year and I think someone who is worthy of all-American consideration with what he’s done.
“He’s had a massive impact on our season. If you look at it with the seven wins and the 13 saves – we’ve won 36 games – he’s had a part in 20 of those 36 wins. That’s a lot and he’s meant a lot to our success this year.”
It took Cozart two full years to learn his craft and he gave Smith a lot of the credit for his newfound success. His head coach helped Cozart work on the mental aspect of pitching which led a profound improvement with his control.
Cozart had always had success using his slider to get right-handed hitters out but had struggled against the lefty hitters. Now he’s developed a back-door slider that has been especially effective against the guys standing in from the left side. It’s taken time and it’s required an entirely new mindset.
“You’ve got to be a different character coming out of the bullpen,” Cozart said. “You’ve got to have a short memory because if a day doesn’t go well, you’re probably going to throw the next day and you’ve got to bounce back. My mentality is to just get the job done no matter what it is because I started out as a closer and now I’m the stopper. My arm health has been great and I’ve been able to (work multiple innings) and keep it rolling.”
Longo did not have to overcome any personal adversity this season and he most certainly has not had a sophomore slump. He hit .346 in 34 games as a freshman, with seven doubles, two triples, two home runs, 16 RBI, 14 runs scored and a team-high seven stolen bases. After going 2-for-4 with an RBI in Friday’s loss to Illinois, Longo is hitting .360 in 56 games, with 12 doubles, seven home runs, 48 RBI, 52 runs and 10 steals.
“I try not to look at my stats and worry about what I did the previous game,” he said. “I tried to let the game come to me and that really helped a lot with slowing the game down, and only trying to control what I can control with my attitude and how prepared I can be.”
Those productive seasons led to Cozart and Longo earning the top individual honors the Mid-American Conference bestows on an annual basis. Both insist they would trade every individual accolade for another victory, although Cozart won’t hide the appreciation he feels.
“If I don’t pitch an inning and we win every game, that’s fine with me; I just want to be part of the ride,” he said. “But to go through those struggles the first two years of transitioning over to a pitcher from a position player, to get that award is kind of important to me. It’s probably the most important award I’ve ever gotten in my life just because of that.”
Three juniors and two sophomores were in Smith’s everyday lineup for Saturday’s game against Wright State, including top hitters Longo, junior Manny DeJesus (.313), junior Cody Gaertner (.295, 4 HRs) and the junior Adryan (.292, 5 HRs). Top right-handers including juniors Sitz and Jake Miller and sophomore
Christian Botter are also expected to return. There’s no reason to think the turn-around can’t continue into next season if everyone remains on the same page.
“I would just say it was a matter of buying in collectively as a team and not giving up; taking everything one pitch at time,” Longo said. “Last year we may have gotten ahead of ourselves a little bit and tried to control more than we should have, and this year we’ve let the game come to us, we’ve tried to focus on one pitch at a time instead of the overall outcome. That definitely helped us a little bit.
“This year everybody is real close,” he concluded. "We’re all buddies and we all get along real well – we can joke around with each other – and just playing baseball with these guys is awesome. I wouldn’t want to be playing with anyone else.”