Polishing His Game

Cal State Fullerton Coach George Horton calls Ryan Owens a “diamond in the rough.”

Owens has been a key player for the Titans the last two seasons, but the infielder hasn’t quite lived up to others’ high expectations.

This summer, however, the diamond is showing a lot more sparkle.

Owens earned a spot on the 26-man Team USA roster by batting .600 in the team’s first nine games. He appears certain to remain on the squad when the roster is cut to 22 players Friday in preparation for the World Championships in Italy July 21-Aug. 2.

“I feel like I’m back to being my old self,” Owens said. “Last season, I think I was probably pressing too much. But now I’m more relaxed at the plate, and having fun.”

Owens says he believes it has helped.

His average has dropped off a bit, but he’s still one of the team’s leaders, batting .349 on 22 hits in 63 at-bats, including six doubles and one home run.

“I’ve been a lot more patient at the plate,” Owens said. “I think that’s probably been the big difference. I’m not swinging at bad pitches in the dirt. It’s amazing what a little patience can do.”

Owens was a high school All-American at Sonora, a member of the U.S. Junior Olympic national team and drafted in the 13th round by the Florida Marlins two years ago. However, the first two years of his college career have been a struggle with consistency.

As a freshman, Owens batted .291 with a team-high 18 errors at shortstop and second base. Last season, Owens got off to a horrible start with only seven hits in his first 35 at-bats (.200). He finished the season batting only .288, though he hit .342 in Big West Conference games and .333 in the NCAA South II regional.

Owens drove in 44 runs and was third on the team in home runs with 10, but it wasn’t the kind of season either he or the Titan coaches were hoping to see.

“We’ve known all along that he has had that kind of ability,” Horton said. “He’s shown it in spurts for us. Ryan is the type of player who really wants to do well for all the right reasons, but that probably has made him press at times. Hopefully, this experience will really help him.

“He can get hot and do some fabulous things, but what we’d like to see is more consistency from him.”

Team USA Coach Ron Polk, a former coach at Mississippi State, says he believes this summer is an indication Owens is continuing to improve.

“He’s made some good progress with us,” Polk said. “We had him at he trials two years ago, and I really liked him then. He’s gotten better since then, but I think his game is ahead of him. He’s still really young, and that gives him a high ceiling for improvement.

“We’ve worked with him on hitting the ball up the middle and going to the opposite field, and that seems to have helped him. He has good speed and good all-around ability.”

Owens has played mainly at third base with Team USA after playing mostly at shortstop last season at Fullerton. “We’ve got several good shortstops, so we thought he could help us more at third,” Polk said. “And he has a good arm.”

Owens says he still feels more comfortable at shortstop, but has no problem playing third. “I just feel my whole game has picked up this summer,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s the atmosphere or what, but I started off really well and was seeing every baseball like it was a balloon for a while.”

Owens’ hitting fell off a bit during the team’s recent 14-day trip to Nicaragua for the World Championship qualifying tournament, where the U.S. team finished second with a 7-2 record behind Panama. But Polk says adverse conditions affected the entire team.

“The conditions there were horrendous,” Owens said. “It rained a lot and we hardly were able to have any batting practice at all. Several times they had rain delays before games and they started playing right after the rain stopped with very little warmup.

“The ball didn’t carry very well with that humidity and the thickness of the air. There were no hitting backdrops, but those teams were used to that, and we weren’t.”

Owens says facing international pitching has been an interesting experience.

“They throw a lot faster than college pitchers,” Owens said. “And they can hit the black part of the plate with two strikes. Another thing I learned is that if the guy ahead of you hits a home run, you’d better watch out. Just about every time that happens, the next batter gets hit with a pitch.”

Team USA is made up of many of the nation’s top returning college players, including Brad Cresse of LSU, Eric Munson and Seth Davidson of USC and Josh Bard of Texas Tech. The team will complete a four-game series with Mexico this week at its home base in Tucson, Ariz., then play three games against Canada on the East Coast before departing for Italy.

“This has been a really good experience for me, and I’m hoping it will help me next year,” Owens said.

Horton says the most important thing is for Owens to continue playing as he has this summer. “We’re going to give him every chance next season to be Ryan Owens,” Horton said. “The day he finally knows he can be a great player, he will be.”