The Huddle: Confidence is key for Raiders and Lady Raiders

Hello, everyone and welcome back to the Huddle, it’s been a while and this week we are talking about Rice Raiders baseball and Rice Lady Raiders softball.

These two teams have had their fair share of struggles this season as well as their fair share of losses.

The good news is they still have plenty of time to pick up some wins before the season ends. The even better news is the answer to most of their struggles is inside the dugout.

What I mean by that is both of these team lack confidence, big time. Looking at their most recent games it’s easy to see why they are lacking confidence because the Raiders lost 12-0 and the Lady Raiders lost 14-0.

During both of those games though both the Raiders and the Lady Raiders played great defensively to start the game. But a couple of bad plays later, shoulders slump down, and you can almost feel the mood shift to, “Oh man, here we go again,” in the dugout.

That mentality carries over into offense, the bats stop making contact then the game runs away from them. It’s tough because these teams are talented and they have all the tools to string wins together, they just get discouraged and it is their kryptonite.

Negative plays happen during a game, but it is the response to those negative plays that define a team. You’re going to strike out, you’re going to drop a fly ball, you’re going to miss a throw for an easy out. These things happen move on to the next play and worry about the mistakes later.

In both teams’ cases they have improved dramatically since last season, but they are still fighting this one final demon. Once they exercise this demon though, look out because a Raiders and Lady Raiders team playing with confidence is going to be a tough team to play against.

Thank you all so much for reading, I will see you guys’ next time.