Aughney set for first season as head coach of Scorpions

There is a new skipper in town, but it's a familiar face.

The University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College's baseball team is under the helm of former assistant Bryan Aughney, who is ready to bring a winning culture to the program.

After starting last season 0-18, the Scorpions rallied during conference play to reach the playoffs for the first time since 2000 and finished third in the Red River Athletic Conference South tournament.

Aughney, who is beginning the first college head coaching job of his career, is looking to build off the wave of momentum from last season and bring home a championship.

"We've got a lot of experience at every position, so it is going to help us a lot," he said. "We always want to build on last year's performance and get better. The goals we talked about from Day 1 is winning a championship and putting us in good position for the conference tournament."

Aughney took over for Joel Barta, who resigned in August to accept the same position at Ridgewater College in Willmar, Minnesota.

Much of the roster from last season is in tact, with UTB-TSC only losing four players and bringing back most of the key offensive and pitching players that helped push the Scorpions to the playoffs.

"I feel fortunate to inherit such a great group of guys," Aughney said. "This is the first head-coaching job I've had since coaching high school, but it's just baseball. I'm trying to get these guys to reach their full potential."

One of the biggest tasks for Aughney will be cutting down on errors, the Achilles' heel the past two seasons for UTB-TSC. The Scorpions averaged 2.714 errors per game and were caught stealing on close to 75 percent of their attempts in 2008.

Returning infielder Tyler O'Neal said Aughney has emphasized the importance of taking care of the baseball and has had the team work vigorously toward playing clean baseball.

"Practice makes perfect," O'Neal said. "We're repping every day. Coach is on us about (the errors) every day. He is really helping us out a lot on that."

Aughney added the team's experience would be a big factor in cutting down on the blunders.

"Errors did hurt us quite a bit," he said. " Its something we really focused on this fall. Errors are going to happen dealing with young amateur athletes. We have matured a lot of last season, and that'll clean up a lot."

Louie Vera is a sports writer for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him at (956) 982-6621 or via e-mail at lvera@brownsvilleherald.com.