Georgia State Panthers hit, and hit, and hit, and ...

By Ty Tagami

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Relatively speaking, last week's baseball games for Georgia State were nail-biters.

Sure, the Panthers won their two home matchups against UNC Asheville.

But the scores were so close, 13-6 on Tuesday and 17-2 the next day, that one had to wonder whether their hearts were really in it.

After all, Panthers fans had grown used to more lopsided results.

"Things slowed down a little bit," admitted GSU assistant sports information director Mike Holmes.

The previous week, for instance, the team's worst showing against North Carolina Central was a 14-0 win. In three other games against the Eagles that week, the Panthers swatted their opponents senseless with scores of 24-2, 32-3 and 33-5.

"Basically, the team just kind of went off," Holmes told the AJC Monday.

Hitting can be contagious, and the players feel a need to top each other, he explained. Five Panthers are batting over .400, he said. They're chasing redshirt sophomore Joey Wood, 21, who finally has overcome an injury to his right shoulder.

Wood went from being unable to lift his arm over his head to batting over .500 as a designated hitter, Holmes said.

The high scores from earlier in March could have been a fluke. Yet the Panthers already have repeated themselves this week. On Sunday, while playing in New Mexico, they scored 30 runs to New Mexico State's 24.

Wood hit so many runs in that game that he was flummoxed by a simple question: how many did you hit?

"Ooh, I don't know, man," he told the AJC. "I don't remember." (He whacked in six runs and touched home plate a half dozen times himself, twice with home runs.)

Despite the decisive victory, head coach Greg Frady said the game was neck-and-neck. Indeed, his team fell behind several times, he said. "It just seemed like no lead, no matter how many runs you had, was safe."

Two factors -- the thin air in New Mexico's high altitude and a stiff wind blowing out to center field -- sent the balls flying, contributing, he said, to one of the most special games in his 23 years of coaching: "Any ball hit good was going out of the park."

GSU is bouncing back from a scoring slump at the beginning of the season. The Panthers lost their first six games but are now 8-7.

The coach said his players have reached a level of calm, comfort and confidence in their swinging. He expects them to continue winning, but he said it was folly, "just craziness," to expect them to continue outscoring opponents to this extent.

But Wood has a young man's confidence, and is feeling good now that his shoulder has healed. He said his teammates didn't know each other well at the beginning of the season but are jelling now, and he said they have focused on "staying within yourself as a hitter."

When asked if GSU fans should expect more heavy-hitting games, he shot back:

"Definitely."