After hitting a rut at and then finding San Diego unpleasant, they wound up losing 11 of 12. Then Sharks baseball found La Mirada to their liking and got back to their winning ways. A four-game sweep of Biola University brought them back up into fourth in the PacWest and got some confidence back into the team.
 
As the team prepared for their longest road trip of the season on the heels of a rough losing stretch, they were not playing loose and confident like how they started the season. The coach and captains were noticing that in the body language, the practices, and the feel around the team. They knew they were playing trying not to lose again instead of playing ball like they knew they could, and they knew they had to do something.
 
They took it upon themselves to make sure that they used the road trip to get back to the easy going, loose group of baseball players that could be a disciplined team all while just having fun and winning ball games. They were going to take it back to basics and look at the foundation of the team. Not just practicing bunts and pitching fundamentals but practicing breathing techniques and resiliency exercises too. They had to relax and trust themselves and each other as a team to know and perform their roles to play complete and complimentary baseball. They were going to focus on team building and body language as much as baseball on this trip.
 
They knew it was going to be different for every player, but captains Caleb Millikan, Chase Taylor, Scott Armstrong, and Vicente Molina also knew that they had to change the team's mindset as much as their swing. Coach Dane Fujinaka empowers his captains to do just that knowing how important team chemistry is to baseball or any sport. The culture and work ethic he has built into the program has been evident over the past few years with him at the helm. However, he also realizes there is always room for improvement and one area is that there will always be rough patches and he wants to figure out the best ways to get through them and enable his players to learn from them for baseball and life.
 
This year, the team has learned a lot about baseball and life. Wins, loses, injuries, and walk-offs. I am willing they have also learned about grades, relationships, being away from family, and budgeting money (or not having any). The next lesson comes back here on island, where they are the "away" team when they play University of Hawaii at Les Murakami Stadium on April 2^nd with first pitch scheduled at 6:35 PM.