Pace baseball was down and out after 4 games. Now the Patriots are red hot. What happened?

A four-game losing streak to start the season was unexpected from the Pace baseball team.

For a program that hasn’t had a losing season in at least two decades, let alone rarely having consecutive losses in a single year, it’s safe to say it was unexpected.

There was frustration. In each of those four games – decided by a three runs or less – it looked like the Patriots were just a hit or error away from bouncing back. In the first three games, Pace head coach Jason McBride was “pretty sure (they) gave up a two-out, bases-loaded double in all those games.” That led to extended innings and disappointing losses.

And then there were nerves. Pace graduated 10 seniors after the 2023 season – where the Patriots were District 1-6A champs and the No. 1 seed in the playoffs before an untimely upset to No. 8 Winter Springs in the Region 1-6A quarterfinals – so with a lot of new players, the varsity rookies were “trying to find their role” with Pace while adjusting to the varsity level.

“Everybody was trying to find their way. I’m trying to figure out who goes where and find my way with this team. We took some lumps in the process and that’s the way it goes sometimes,” McBride said. “You’re trying to figure out who goes where, and how you’ll work your pitching and lineup. … The thing is, in Florida, you’ve only got 25 games to figure that you. You don’t have much time to figure that out. You’re trying to make judgements on kids after 10 at-bats on where to go with them, and that isn’t enough to figure anything out.”

After four losses, the Patriots had enough. Returning players to the Patriots gathered among themselves, including Grant Walters and Tanner Sauls. By no means was it “negative” meeting, Walters said. They sat down and discussed how they were going to turn things around.

How they weren’t going to let a season go to waste.

“We had to figure it out,” Walters said.

“I know, for a week, we had our best practices that we’ve ever had after that fourth loss,” McBride said. “We had some really good practices.”

McBride started to go into detail about the week of practice. Then he paused, and chuckled a little bit.

“Ask the players about the rainstorm practice,” McBride told the PNJ after the Patriots had just beaten Milton on Thursday, 11-1.

McBride had sent over Walters and Sauls to talk about the season through 20 games. A season that went from down-and-out to red-hot.

After gaining their bearings from the dominant win over Milton, both players were asked about the infamous practice. Walters let out a little laugh. What was that practice all about?

This is where the PNJ lets the players take over.

“Basically, it was a Friday and we just had that fourth loss. … We didn’t get here on time to practice. A couple guys got here a minute late or two. We were on the line (getting ready to run) as soon as practice started,” Walters said. “We ran for a little bit, then it started pouring rain. We thought we were just going to hit in the cage a bit because of the rain.”

“We showed up to practice, saw it was raining and were like, ‘OK. Cage day. We played bad the night before,” Sauls said. “Nope, get the field set up. We had to practice.”

“We ran for a little bit, then it started pouring rain. We thought we were just going to hit in the cage a bit because of the rain. Then Coach McBride was like, ‘Get back on the line.’ … We were like, ‘Oh crap. Here we go. We’re in for a trip,’ you know?” Walters said. “Two hours of pouring rain. If any of us made an error or messed up mentally or weren’t picking each other up, we were on the line running.”

“And we better get everything right in practice, or we’re going to have to run some more,” Walters said. “It really made us work harder.”

That’s when things changed for Pace, following the “rainstorm practice.”

Flipping a script

With the exception of one hiccup along the way, Pace hasn’t stopped pouring on the wins since that practice. The only loss the Patriots have suffered since then was a one-run loss to Pensacola Catholic, one of the top teams in the nation, let alone Florida.

The infamous practice helped the Patriots realize one thing – off the field, especially. The players needed to be better teammates. They needed to start lifting each other up, and help flip a mindset to simply turn to the next play.

Also, there’s a focus on better practices.

“We were playing a little laid back and got beat. … It made us push harder,” Sauls said. “The main thing is practice. We’re more focused now.”

Twenty games into the season, McBride said players are understanding their roles. Players are getting settled in. On the field, defensive play has gotten a lot stronger, McBride added, and pitching has been on point, limiting how many opponents get walked or free bases.

McBride noted that in some losses, like the one against Crestview on Feb. 28, the errors added up – and thought the Patriots had upward of eight errors in that game specifically. Since, the errors have been limited.

Pace has only given up five or more runs twice since the losing streak – once against Gulf Breeze in March, and again against Lincoln on April 5.

“We’ve got some guys in different spots. Now we’re making the routine plays,” McBride said. “I told them, when we were losing, that you’re never really as bad as you think you are. When you’re winning, you’re never as good as you think you are. Just keep your head down and keep grinding.

“We’re not going to roll over and quit. You’ve just got to keep grinding and trying to get better. These guys did that.”

There was no quit in Pace. And that’s led to, as of Thursday night, a 13-game win streak and a 15-5 record.

“I knew it was there. We just had to do it,” Sauls said. “We had to get over that hump. We weren’t as bad as it looked on paper.”

“I knew we were better than 0-4,” Walters said. “But we’ve turned it around completely, and have shocked everybody, honestly. Except us.”

Pace only has a few games left in the regular season, including a Friday game against Choctaw. The Patriots have a tough week to end the regular season with a road game at Pensacola Catholic on Tuesday and a home game against Escambia on Wednesday.

Then the district tournament begins followed by, hopefully, an entrance into the regional tournament. Pace, ranked fifth in the latest FHSAA rankings last Tuesday, is the top team in the district, likely the favorite to win the District 1-6A crown.

The goal is to keep winning – obviously – McBride said, hoping to get high enough in the rankings to have assurance that the Patriots will get into the state playoffs no matter how the district tournament unfolds.

“But we’ve got to win these games,” McBride said. “You can’t let one slip by you. …

“These guys, man, to their credit, it’s nothing we did as coaches. They came together as a team and stuck with it, grinded out a few wins and got some confidence.”

The win streak doesn’t get mentioned intentionally by the team, Walters said. Guys bring it up every once and awhile to say, ‘Hey, look at this win streak we’re on.’ But at the time, Walters didn’t know what the number was that Pace had reached.

That’s because Walters knows Pace is “hot right now.” But the team wants to stay hot moving into playoffs.

“We just have to let the results take care of themselves,” Sauls said. “All we can do is win the next game.”

Ben Grieco is a sports reporter for the Pensacola News Journal. He can be reached on X (@BenGriecoSports) and via email at BGrieco@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pace baseball finding great success late in season after rough start