KEVIN KLAUS/Arizona Daily Wildcat UA senior Brian Anderson slides into base earlier this season during an intrasquad scrimmage at Sancet Field. Anderson, who is recovering from a knee injury, returned to limited practice yesterday.

The UA baseball team returned from its first road trip of the year experiencing something completely new - a losing streak.

Not only did the team lose to Texas A&M, but it was swept in all three games last weekend in the Lone Star State.

"I think the team understood they were getting into better competition," head coach Andy Lopez said. "The essence of a great player is that he has competitive greatness and when the competition gets better, he gets better."

The UA pitching staff yielded 14 earned runs on the four-game trip to watch its combined ERA rise to 2.91 on the season.

The Arizona defense committed nine errors that led to 16 unearned runs. In the four losses this season, UA (11-4) has averaged 2.25 errors per game.

The poor defensive play coupled with an anemic offense over the weekend made practice this week that much more important.

"The losses show how you need to be effective in all parts of the game in order to come out on top," freshman outfielder Chris Marini said.

On Saturday, senior catcher Chris Cunningham's two-run double in the top of the eighth inning broke up an Aggie no-hit bid.

Arizona had 13 hits in the series but struggled to deliver the much-needed clutch hits.

"We didn't really execute well and didn't do all of the things we should have," Marini said.

Yesterday, the team took early batting practice, and the coaching staff emphasized hitting the ball to the opposite field.

The UA coaching staff tried a new approach to hitting in practice yesterday.

Left-handed hitters faced pitching coach Jeff Morris from between the pitcher's mound and the third baseline while he moved to the other side for the right-handers.

"It's called angle hitting," sophomore second baseman Greg Powers said. "We hit badly versus A&M, so we wanted to try something different,"

Hitting to the opposite field is a difficult task for batters due to swing problems. Batters sometimes suffer from hitting outside pitches off the end of the bat when they "open up" due to jerking their head, striding their lead foot away from the plate, or being over aggressive.

"It's a good exercise to prevent me from opening up," Marini said.

Sophomore Brian Anderson reported to practice yesterday dressed in a T-shirt and shorts but was missing something that he has been wearing since Feb. 3 - his knee brace.

The centerfielder/closer has been cleared to throw and possibly jog but still cannot take batting practice because of a sprained knee he suffered against Utah.

Anderson targets March 8 as his comeback date.

"I want to be back against Long Beach State but it'll take a couple of weeks before I can hit," he said.

Senior shortstop Brad Hassey underwent X-rays on his wrist yesterday but is still able to practice.

Hassey was hit by a pitch on Feb. 9 against San Diego State but remained in the game. However, he was forced to bunt in his last two at-bats of the game and has not missed a game despite the pain.

"It's been nagging me over the weekend and has been progressively been getting worse," he said.