South Meck baseball aims to get back on top

In the South Mecklenburg baseball team room, there is a list of goals written in red marker on the white board. There are the obvious ones: win conference, beat Ardrey Kell and Providence, go 3-0 in the Jack Sink Invitational tournament.

Written above those are the goals the team is really focused on: having productive at bats, taking each game seriously and reducing errors. Sabre coach John Tuscan knows if they accomplish those, the rest will come.

"Those are the things we can control," said the third-year coach. "Obviously we want to be up there with (Ardrey Kell) and Providence, but that's not something that we directly control. So we want to control those things we can and then everything else, the wins, will fall into place."

With a team loaded with underclassmen last year, South Meck finished 16-10 overall and 8-6 in the conference, tying for third place with Butler in the Southwestern 4A . Tuscan has nearly the same group back this year and has high expectations for his squad, as long as they don't lose the "blue collar attitude" that the team has had over the last two years.

"We want to come out and be the scrappiest team on the field," he said.

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