HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Conference USA wasn’t expecting much from Thundering Herd baseball this season. Marshall was picked by the league’s coaches to finish dead last in the conference and miss the C-USA postseason tournament. However, with an overall record of 17-13, Marshall is off to its best start since 2001 and with 12 conference games in the books, Marshall finds itself fourth in the C-USA standings.
The Herd’s early season success has surprised many around the league but Marshall’s 7-5 conference record has not been a shock the Herd players or coaching staff.
“I knew this was going to be a good club. I knew it from the start. It was just when we were going to click and put it together to make a run,” said coach Jeff Waggoner, who is now in his tenth season in Marshall’s dugout.
“We’ve got some great senior leadership and talent all the way through the lineup.”
Marshall is coming off a successful series in San Antonio, winning 2-of-3 for the third consecutive weekend. The Herd previously won weekend series against FIU and Louisiana Tech.
“It starts with our starting pitching. If they can go seven innings, that gives us a chance to limit our bullpen. I think our senior leadership, guys like [Aaron] Bossi, D.J. Gee and those guys who are our igniters, really do a good job of leading the team and being vocal guys.”
Waggoner likes the diversity in Marshall’s lineup, with speed, power, and contact and believes it poses problems for opposing pitchers. Marshall has power with Tommy Lane who already has nine homeruns on the season. Aaron Bossi is hitting .325, additionally Corey Bird and D.J. Gee have swiped a combined 24 bases to this point in the season.
“To me it’s got everything you need in it. It’s got power; it’s got speed, guys that can cause havoc. It’s hard to pitch to us because it’s dynamic. We can go left or right. It’s hard to settle in as a pitcher and throw one or two pitches and dominate them.”
Marshall also has at its disposal something Waggoner had longed for since his arrival on campus. The Herd is able to utilize the indoor practice facility at the Chris Cline Athletic Complex. That means no more ground balls on the gym floor at old Gullikson Hall.
“My first eight years we dealt with a small, hardwood gym, with 40 players and trying to get a team ready and you go down south and you start off making errors that you normally wouldn’t.
The pending series with 16th ranked FAU gives Marshall an opportunity to demonstrate to the rest of Conference USA that the Herd’s early season success is not an apparition and that it can compete with the best in the league.
A successful series against the Owls will also go a long way in putting the Herd in position to make the postseason tournament, something it hasn’t done since 2010 when it lost to Rice in the quarterfinals.
“We need to be there (the C-USA Tournament) and we need to make some noise when we get there. It’s still a long way away. We’ve got to continue to get better and we will. These guys are a hard working group, they listen, they’re coachable and if they can just stay in the present and keep getting better it will be fun in the end.”
Marshall will face FAU at Epling Stadium in Beckley this weekend with another chance to prove that the rest of the conference vastly underestimated the Herd.