Lance Boyd hacks at a pitch. The Harding baseball team went to the semi-finals in the conference tournament. Jeff Crone takes a breather whi le watch ing the game wtih Coach Phil Brown. The Bisons' high leve l of optimism pushed them to post-season play. Despite two consecutive disappointing seasons and losing three All-AIC performers, the Bisons came into the 1992 baseball season with a high level of optimi sm. Their optimism showed .itself when they finished the season with a semi-final bid in the conference tournament. "We were in a rebuilding situation," Head Coach Steve Smith said. "Although we lost Robert Cooper, Brandon Harrell and Larry Cheshier, we still had the nucleus of our team." The Bisons finished fourth with a 1828-1 record, 11-13 in conference. Finishing ahead of them were Arkansas Tech, Southern Arkansas and Henderson State. "This was a disappointing year in a way, but really it has been a very good year," Smith said. "We had to replace a lot of the offense and pitching that we lost last year." The year was highlighted by many outstanding performances. Chris Byrd broke the single season stolen base record. "The old record was 27 ·stolen bases by Randy Hindman in '85," Byrd said. "I set a goal before the season started to steal 30 (that sounded better than 28)." Byrd got #30 in the last season game against UALR. He al so finished the season with the second-best batting average on the team and ninth-best in the conference. Jeff Phillips led the Bisons in batting with a .364 average. His average placed him in at number four in the conference batting leaders. From the mound, there was none better than Harding's Trevor Black. He led the AIC pitching category with a 2.2 ERA. "I'm really pleased with the performance of this team," Smith said. "These kids played hard and did better than maybe they should." -- Bill Carruthers Athletics 135
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