Patriots baseball team headed to Lone Star Conference tournament

TYLER, Texas (KLTV) - The Patriots baseball team is headed to the Lone Star Conference baseball tournament. Their debut begins Friday in Kingsville.

This is the first post-season of eligibility for the Patriots who head to Kingsville with plenty of confidence and hitting power. Five of them are hitting over 300.

“I mean it’s pretty nice knowing that any day you go to the ballpark and show up and do the job needs to be done. I mean being able to have a team the hits above 300 makes it easier on the pitchers makes it easier to win ball games. And it relaxes anybody,” said Kyle McShaffry.

McShaffry is known to his teammates as slap, though not not because of what happened at the Academy Awards last month. He says his name’s too long so Slap it is. By any name however, he’s among the team leaders at Irwin Field. The team took three of four from 25th ranked Lubbock Christian this past weekend. That’s how you go into a conference tournament winning

“Without a doubt that was a huge weekend, to win three out of four it’s nice to have a quality opponent like that. Those guys do a tremendous job. Coach Blackwood has been there for a long time And those guys are great, so do you have a quality opponent like that to in the year really prepared you going to the postseason,” said Patriots coach Brent Porche.

This team admits they have their flaws, but you wouldn’t know because the culture of the campus is one of winning in and out of the classroom

“We come here every day and we practice as hard as we can and we have a saying that, our goal for the season is to field 979, that’s pretty good. And we’re right there couple more games we’re going to get there,” said McShaffry.

“You know when you come here you step on the campus there’s something different about UT Tyler, you know when you get here you are here for a reason to win it whatever you’re doing. I think that’s pretty much understood across-the-board whether the baseball softball volleyball basketball. Everybody here is a winner and that is what we strive for is to win,” said Patriots pitcher Garrett Arredondo.

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