Joe Kline / The Bulletin Bend's West Tunnell connects with a pitch during Friday evening's home opener against Corvallis Vince Genna Stadium.

Seth Brown has proven to thrive in stressful moments.

At Lewis-Clark State in Lewiston, Idaho, the junior rang up a .386 batting average while pounding out 23 home runs and 20 doubles. He drove in 82 runs in just 58 games, leading the Warriors to an NAIA championship and setting himself up to potentially hear his name called during the MLB draft early next week.

But while other professional prospects remained at home, waiting to see if their boyhood dreams come true or if they will spend the summer playing in a collegiate league, Brown was at Vince Genna Stadium, dressing down for the Bend Elks’ season opener Friday night.

“I get antsy,” Brown conceded. “I can’t just sit around. Any chance I get to play baseball, I want to come out and play.”

As seasoned as Brown has proven to be in pressure-filled moments, however, even he can succumb to opening-night jitters — an issue Trey Watt saw plague the Elks in their 3-0 loss to the Corvallis Knights.

“Our guys, I could see we were playing a little tight, which is awesome because it shows me that they care,” said Watt, Bend’s first-year coach. “They care a lot about this town, this community, doing well and representing Bend well. It’s just going to be a matter of them trusting their talent, trusting their abilities and just relaxing.”

The Elks received a single each from Christian Cavaness, Tyler Davis, Cooper Hummel, Tommy Lane and Jarod Gonzales. But Bend also struck out nine times and committed three errors. Starter Jordan Wilcox allowed one run on seven hits with two strikeouts.

Of course there is no describing the feeling of emerging from the dugout to the warm embrace of the home crowd, the roaring of more than a thousand Elks fans serenading players. Don’t think Brown, and surely the rest of the Elks, didn’t notice. (Said Brown: “It’s pretty special here.”) But those opening-night jitters …

“First game of the season, it’s always going to be a little rough,” Brown said. “You expect that. The only thing you can do is put your nose to the grindstone and fix the little hitches that you have. That’s what we’re going to do.”

And from the sparks that fly from the grindstone, player and coach agree, should emerge a more comfortable and, perhaps more important, a more confident team, beginning with the second game of the West Coast League season tonight against the Knights.

“I think after this game we’ll come out a different team tomorrow, for sure,” Watt said. “I think we’ll settle down big time tomorrow, just because these guys now know what to expect. They know what the routine is. It’s the same time tomorrow, same routine. I think we’ll be OK.”

“I truly think that the sky’s the limit for us,” added Brown. “A lot of us haven’t seen live pitching for a while. Pitchers are going to have a little bit of an edge, but we’re going to come back, and we’re going to dominate the rest of the season.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0307, glucas@bendbulletin.com.