This weekend’s series at East Carolina saw the USF baseball team leave with another struggle in Conference USA play, winning just 1 of 3 for the third week in a row. The Bulls have seven straight wins in their middle-of-the-week-games, but found themselves mediocre in the weekend conference series.

In February, South Florida struggled through three losses at the start of the season and ended the month with a 4-6 record. The Bulls answered with a 13-5 March, one less win than they have in April with four games left in the month.

The Bulls are in desperate need of C-USA victories as they are stagnating in the middle of the pack in a conference that was slated in the preseason by Baseball America to only get three slots in the NCAA Regional Tournament. However, the Bulls still find themselves in better shape than last season, when they were 20-20 after 40 games. They are 23-17 this season.

In simple terms, the Bulls just didn’t have great at-bats this weekend. Five of South Florida’s nine regulars batted a combined .167. The entire team batted .267. With a rainout on Friday, South Florida played a doubleheader Saturday, losing the first game 5-3 and winning the second 10-8. The Bulls were unable to match the Pirates bats and lost the swing game 8-4 Sunday.

One of the only bright spots of the weekend was from shortstop Myron Leslie, who went 9-for-12 on the weekend with two doubles, six RBI and a three-run home run in the opening game, allowing the Bulls to avoid the shutout.

“This weekend I just focused on being focused,” Leslie said. “I focused at the bat and had a good approach.”

Leslie expressed some concern about the Bulls’ play in C-USA, saying that the team needs to gather some wins in the last leg of the season.

“I know we haven’t played our best baseball yet,” Leslie said. “We know when we start clicking we will be unbeatable. We know we can play better and we’re capable of it. We just need to do it, it’s getting down to crunch time.”