Spring Valley has shown some flashes of brilliance over the first half of the season, and the focus has now shifted toward shoring up the defense and putting the ball in play to increase the consistency.

The Cardinals are 2-2 over their last four games, improving to 3-6 this season. Spring Valley beat Colfax 4-2, lost to Mondovi 12-0, beat Chetek-Weyerhaeuser 11-2 and lost to Boyceville 11-1.

“It’s been some ups and downs. Just a few innings here and there where we make a couple mistakes,” Head Coach Brandon Walczak said. “Just not taking advantage of opportunities that we’ve had.”

Pitchers Will Biggs, Wyatt Smith and Braden Gregg have gobbled up the majority of the innings on the mound, and the trio has thrown a lot of strikes.

“Those three have kind of solidified our rotation as far as being able to have guys that throw strikes and throw competitive pitches,” Walczak said. “They do a great job of keeping us in games. Not necessarily trying to do too much but trying to rely on the defense to make plays for them.”

Walczak said the defense needs to be more solid, not allowing opponents to string together big innings because they are giving away outs.

“It’s just minimizing the mistakes, mental and physical,” Walczak said. “We’re going to have some physical mistakes; that’s the game of baseball. You can’t let that run into the mental aspect where now you’re second guessing yourself.”

At the plate, strikeouts have been an issue for the team.

“It’s just putting the ball in play,” Walczak said. “There’s been a few games where we’ve had anywhere from 10 to 14, 15 strikeouts. Obviously, you’re not going to score runs when you’re not putting the ball in play.”

Spring Valley has scored 11 runs in a pair of games this season. Walczak said when the team is scoring like that, it is because they are putting the ball in play, taking advantage of opposing miscues and being smart on the base paths. In the more recent 11-run showing against Chetek-Weyerhaeuser, Spring Valley worked long, seven-pitch at-bats that wore down the Bulldog pitching and defense. If the Cardinals can make a habit of that type of scoring, they can finish strong in May.

Hitting has been a balanced attack thus far, with Biggs, Toby Shafer, Jake Hannack and Mason Winger all at or above the five-hit marker. Now, the Cardinals are looking to thread those hits together and turn them into rallies that decide games.

Spring Valley is in the grind of the conference schedule currently, with upcoming matchups May 7 at Colfax, May 9 at home against Clear Lake and May 11 at Elmwood/Plum City.