By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

Back-to-back losses at the Sugar Land Classic a few weeks ago left the UTSA Roadrunners searching for that missing something. A day after dropping a 4-1 decision to the Creighton Bluejays, they gave up five early runs to the Lamar Cardinals and lost 5-3 at Constellation Field.

All in all, a 3-5 record at that point wasn’t what anyone in the Roadrunners’ camp wanted or expected.

Not to worry. The Roadrunners turned it around last week with four victories in five games against solid competition, boosting them to 6-6 leading into a Wednesday night home game against the Tarleton State Texans.

The Roadrunners don’t have everything ironed out in their quest to generate early-season momentum. But in a road victory at the University of Houston and two wins in three days at home over the Grand Canyon University Lopes, they have displayed some of the toughness and resilience that Coach Pat Hallmark always likes to see.

“I didn’t think we were real tough initially,” he said Tuesday afternoon. “We do look like we’re getting tougher. We do look like we’re still resilient and that we like to compete. Maybe another box we need to check is to play better defense and run the bases better. We’re starting to hit a little bit. I’m not disappointed in the pitching despite the total runs (allowed). I think we’re still pitching fine.

“The bats need to stay competitive, which they have been, but the next two boxes is that we need to shore up the defense a little bit. We’re pretty inconsistent there. And the baserunning, I got to look (as head coach) in the mirror on all of it. But if the team doesn’t run the bases good, certainly it could be some coaching there. So, we need to run the bases a little better.”

Coming up

Tarlton State at UTSA, Wednesday, 4 p.m.
UTSA at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Friday, 7 p.m.
UTSA at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Saturday, 6:30 p.m.
UTSA at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Sunday, 1 p.m.