GREELEY — Northern Colorado baseball coach Kevin Smallcomb is finding that talking about the future for the Bears as a member of the Great West Conference is less complicated than talking about how they got into a league that stretches from New York to Texas to Utah.
For one thing, it takes time to explain how schools in New Jersey and New York are in a “Great West” conference. Secondly, Smallcomb has more important priorities, such as building a top-flight Division I program.
“To say that we’re going to be in the College World Series in the near future is not being realistic,” Smallcomb said. “To say that we can get to a regional tournament, that’s a very realistic goal. You don’t have to be from a big conference to get to the College World Series. That’s what makes college baseball so great.”
UNC was a powerhouse in baseball decades ago, but in 1991 the school deemphasized athletics to compete in Division II. In recent years, it has built back up as it transitioned back to Division I, a process it completed in the 2007-08 school year.
Having gained entrance into a new conference this year, the Bears (21-21 overall, 11-5 Great West) are starting down a path Smallcomb hopes will lead toward UNC regaining baseball glory. The Bears have placed 10 teams in the College World Series, the last in 1974.”Being in a conference is a huge deal for us,” Smallcomb said. “Before we would get excited about playing teams such as Nebraska. We beat Arizona State once when it was the top-ranked team in the country. But if we played those teams six times, we might win once. In a conference, every game is important. You can feel the intensity in the dugout.”
Smallcomb took over at UNC eight years ago.
“I knew who Northern Colorado was in baseball and it had been to the College World Series a bunch of times,” Smallcomb said. “But when I got here, they had been Division II for a while and some of that had been forgotten.”
Playing as an independent in baseball proved to be a tough road.
“We had to play at places that would pay to bring us in for a series,” Smallcomb said. “We wanted to play a Division I schedule, and only the Air Force Academy was a close-by opponent. The losses piled up faster than the victories because of teams we were playing and where we were playing them.”
The Bears started the 2007 and 2008 seasons with 24 consecutive road games, in part because of the quest for Division I opponents, and in part because of the need to go south for more baseball-friendly weather.
“I got here in 2006, and I can remember being on road trips that lasted a month,” said pitcher Joe Sawicki, a product of Monarch High School and a two-time Great West pitcher of the week this spring. “Being in a conference gives you something to play for every game. We have a goal to win the conference championship.”
Sixteen of UNC’s 26 home games this season are against conference opponents. The Bears make their first Great West trip to the East Coast this weekend to play the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark.
While a trip such as that can be hard on the travel budget, Smallcomb said UNC is spending less on travel than in years past because it has so many more home games. The conference schedule is set up so the Bears travel to play each of their East Coast opponents in alternating years.
Members of the Great West are Chicago State, Houston Baptist, North Dakota, Utah Valley, Texas-Pan American, UNC, New Jersey Institute of Technology and New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury, N.Y.
Smallcomb said his goal is nothing short of fielding a team that can compete for NCAA Tournament play.
“We’ve set the bar pretty high in baseball,” he said. “We play a Division I schedule because we want to be responsible to the conference and our players. We’re working for an automatic qualifying berth into the regional tournaments. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Irv Moss: 303-954-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com
