Hitting woes made Matadors a .500 team

 In all their travels around the Arizona Community College Athletic Conference this season, the Arizona Western baseball team found itself making a visit to Splitsville far too often.

And while getting at least one win out of a doubleheader is better than none, Splitsville's road doesn't lead to the postseason.

The Matadors made a habit of following up wins with losses too often during the 2008 season, and the result was a 26-28 record and 19-19 effort in the ACCAC.

"When you're playing all these games tooth and nail that grinds on you," AWC coach John Stratton said. "And if you hit a slide it can be mentally tough because we knew what our deficiency was, and that's scoring runs."

AWC ranked near the bottom of the conference in most offensive categories, third to last in hits, second to last in batting average and on the bottom in extra-base hits.

Stratton recalled a four-game stretch at the beginning of March when the Matadors lost four games to Yavapai and Central, two teams that ended up in the playoffs. AWC was outscored 16-5 in those four games, but two of the games were decided by one run.

"I think we were consistent enough with pitching and defense, but when it got to be a mental grind you're not going to play every game just right, and when you're only losing by a couple runs, everything else gets intensified," Stratton said. "We lost to Yavapai 3-0 and had a couple key errors, but the zero on the board is why we lost."

AWC's bats began to show some pop late in the season once the Matadors were out of the playoff picture, winning five of their last seven games and scoring six runs or more in four of those contests. And for Stratton and the Matadors, the good news is that much of that late surge came from the play of freshmen like Arturo Flores and Edgar Lopez.

"Part of that was intentional, and part of that was maturity," Stratton said of his younger players' late success. "(Todd) Sepulveda made a turnaround and threw well his last two starts, and (Ian) Campbell resurfaced and got his flow back on the mound, so that's promising."

While the Matadors had their ups and downs, their ups did not go without recognition. AWC pitchers Derek Benham and Stephen Barbosa each earned Pitcher of the Week honors during the season, and Division-I Liberty University-bound P.J. Jimenez also picked up a Player of the Week award. Kofa High alum and sophomore transfer Giovanni Garcia also made a big splash in his homecoming year, putting his name atop most of the Matadors' statistical categories and being named a first team All-ACCAC selection and the team's MVP.