He's playing extremely well. His confidence has come full circle. It does help our team offense now that we have another scorer.

Opener Matthew Hayden ... is so badly bereft of form and confidence that he has to be replaced at the top of the order and his inability to change his method of batting has cost his team.

The confidence factor is certainly higher this year.

I really like his presence and his confidence. We just have to help him catch up in some other areas, and I think he's going to help us a lot this year. He sits right next to me in the meetings, so there's never a dull moment, but the thing is he's hungry for knowledge, and he wants to do well, so we're just going to keep working on it. He has a long way to go, and he knows it, and the clock is ticking.

Naturally that does help. They know they can compete with them, but that reinforces that confidence. In the third quarter, we were able to answer their run. Maybe that?s a sign our younger kids gained good experience earlier in the year.

It's great to get back to .500 in the conference. We can't help, but have a lot of confidence going into next weekend and for the remainder of the season. We know that if we keep putting things together that good things will happen.