Conor Hartigan deciphered part of the issue on his own.

The James Madison fourth-year junior outfielder, who was hampered by hamstring problems earlier in his career, said he needed to make changes in order to be available and in the Dukes’ everyday lineup.

“I liked to be a little bit of a meathead in the weight room,” Hartigan said with a chuckle. “I always liked to be a bigger guy and put up the most weight, but I think that was a young me with a little bit of an ego. And I think now, I’ve grown up a bit and understand that I’ve got to be healthy to play this game and I don’t have to lift 9,000 pounds to hit a ball over the fence. So, I did a lot of stuff to be able to help me get through a season.”

Hartigan said he changed his training tactics, implementing more baseball-specific drills instead of spending so much time on the bench press or the squat rack like he did when he played football for Millbrook High School. The decision helped him during the offseason to get lean, lose some weight and take pressure off his hamstrings, which allowed for Hartigan to be at his best this spring.

Entering Friday evening’s regular-season finale against VCU, Hartigan had hitting streak of 16 straight games and 12 multi-hit performances during that stretch. His .377 batting average for the campaign was nearly .100 points higher than any other season in his career and his on-base percentage of .427 was more than .40 points higher than any other season in his career.

“I feel great,” he said. “I feel like nobody can beat me, to be honest right now, and that’s not to sound cocky or anything. But I think every hitter should go up to the box thinking that they’re the best hitter in the league.”

His home runs (5), doubles (10) and RBIs (24) are up, too, and all three are more than he’s had in any of his three previous years with the program. He slugged his fifth homer of the season Thursday night against the Rams by dispatching a first-pitch breaking ball over the left-field fence in the fifth inning at Veterans Memorial Park.

“I will say my swing was good,” Hartigan said, “but my approach was not where it is now. I also think that’s another thing that has grown a lot with me as a player. I’ve done a much better job not swinging at balls out of the [strike] zone.

“I used to have a free-swinging mentality, and I still do at times, but it was a little much. I expanded too much swinging at balls out of the zone, so I talked to my hitting coach, Alex Guerra, and he told me good hitters take their walks. So, I’ve been looking for balls in the zone that I can handle. I’m being a little more picky, and understanding pitch sequences a lot better has helped as well. My approach has hit new heights and I think I turned the corner in that sense and it’s helped a lot, so hopefully I can keep it going with the approach going forward.”

For the Dukes, a team plagued by unfortunate circumstances and an inconsistent schedule this spring, Hartigan and fellow outfielder Chase DeLauter have remained extremely reliable through the ups and downs. In late March and last month, JMU had a pair of coronavirus pauses forcing the team to miss games.

Hartigan said he never tested positive for the virus, but that the stops and starts have hurt the Dukes. JMU went 6-9 in the Colonial Athletic Association and played less conference games and significantly less total games than any other program in the league. This past Tuesday, JMU lost a CAA contest it was forced to continue from April 25 at William & Mary, when the Dukes trailed 6-3 in the bottom of the seventh.

“And it feels like we’ve started every game in the bottom of the seventh, down three runs and we’ve got to come back,” Hartigan said. “The whole season has been tough for a lot of guys with the testing every single day and it’s just part of our lives now. … A lot of guys have had to deal with getting quarantined for two weeks, missing games and then sometimes coming back and getting injured and that’s really frustrating for a lot of guys and really frustrating for the team as a whole. We feel like we have a shot, but we also feel like we don’t.”

Hartigan, who will stay local this summer to play in the Valley Baseball League for the Harrisonburg Turks, said he’s tried not to use the long breaks as an excuse for himself.

“We’ve been down and out a lot and haven’t had the chance to get in a groove as a team,” he said, “but for me, I just tried to keep my head high and as an older guy, I think I needed to keep moving forward and not let it phase me in order to show the younger guys you’ve got to be ready for that next pitch whenever it comes.”