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Baseball coach Jason Gill was on a conference call with USC athletics officials last Thursday about the quickly-evolving state of affairs across the country when the news changed yet again.

"They were just briefing us on what was going on and what we should do -- very good communication from our leadership. It was outstanding. So we were in the middle of that and one of our senior administrators said, 'Excuse me, I just got word from the NCAA that they're cancelling all winter and spring championships,'" Gill recalled. "So that happened 45 minutes before I was meeting with my team. So it's not like I had time to prepare. I got off the conference call and in a half hour I had to address 35 guys and tell them what was going on. ... It was tough -- a tough conversation."

The Trojans had started a new chapter for the program with Gill's arrival, and the early returns were highly encouraging as the team started 10-5 and produced a winning record from each of the first four weekends of the season.

USC had just beaten Xavier, 7-3, that Wednesday night and was planning to meet the next day regardless, but no one knew that the team had already played its last game by that point, with precautions against the spread of coronavirus ramping up in real time nationwide.

"They were just staring at me and I was trying to do my best to explain to them everything I could of what I knew, which wasn't a lot. And then I just had to put it in perspective to them that when things like this happen, we feel like it's just us. The first reaction is 'poor me.' But it's our entire country that's going through this, and some people are going through a lot worse than having a baseball season cancelled," Gill said. "There's all kinds of horrible things happening, so I had to try to put it in perspective for them and just say it's what's right for everybody."

Still, the abruptness was jarring -- as it was across the country as sports at all levels ground to a halt. Gill noted that normally a team either knows it's win-or-go-home in the postseason, or in a lesser year at least has the end of the schedule to plan for accordingly.

"But this happened literally within 12 hours that all this stuff went down," he said.

Now with a week to process it, Gill talked with TrojanSports.com about his shortened first season and what he feels was accomplished in those 15 games.

That included a lopsided 7-1 victory over Cal State Fullerton, where Gill played and was an assistant coach earlier in his career, and notable wins over very good teams from TCU and Vanderbilt -- the reigning College World Series champions.

All in all, it was an impressive start for a Trojans team that had gone 25-29-1 the previous season.

"I think it was a great start for the new chapter in Trojan baseball," Gill said. "We won all four weekend series that we played and there were a lot of positive things going on and we were getting better. So I feel like it's moving in the right direction. I'm just so proud of all those guys for just buying into what I was telling them would work, and I think they believed me and I think it was working."

Gill felt coming in that USC would have enough offense -- his priority was developing the pitching and defense.

And in those 15 games the Trojans got to play, he felt the defense was the most pleasant surprise.

"We had one bad game -- it was an inopportune time against UCLA when we really played awful defense -- but other than that it was 0 and 1 error pretty much for the rest of the games. We were very sound defensively," he said. "... You take away that game against UCLA and our fielding percentage was over .980."

On the mound, meanwhile, junior left-hander John Beller took a huge step from his encouraging first two seasons, posting a 3-0 record, 1.12 ERA and 25 strikeouts with 6 walks over 24 innings. And he was just getting better and better. Over his last two appearances, he held Seton Hall scoreless for 7 innings and then held Vanderbilt to 1 run on 2 hits and 2 walks with 7 Ks over 8 innings.

"We were super excited for Johnny. He did exactly what coach [Ted] Silva asked him to do. He opened to listening to coach Silva and it really paid off. He did great. It's such a small body of work, but for all the opportunities he had it was lights out," Gill said. "So was Isaac [Esqueda]. All our starting arms did really well for us."

Esqueda, another junior lefty, posted a 1.20 ERA over 15 innings (two starts, one relief appearance), redshirt sophomore lefty Alex Cornwell (2-1, 3.66 ERA) and junior righty Kyle Hurt (2-1, 3.71) made four starts each, junior lefty Brian Gursky allowed no earned runs over 12 innings of relief, freshman righty Ethan Hoopingarner allowed just 1 run in 11 1/3 innings out of the bullpen and grad transfer Ben Wanger tallied 3 saves while allowing 1 run over 6 1/3 innings.

Wanger, who transferred in from Yale, also led USC in hitting, batting .410 with a .500 on-base percentage and 4 extra-base hits.

"I didn't have any expectations for anybody because I didn't know any of the team, so him coming from Yale I had heard good things about him but I certainly didn't think he'd be leading our team in hitting and closing games for us. So that was obviously a pretty neat thing," Gill said.

Junior third baseman Jamal O'Guinn hit .378 with a .533 on-base percentage and a team-high 6 doubles, freshman centerfielder Rhylan Thomas hit .356 with a team-high 13 runs scored, sophomore first baseman/DH Clay Owens hit .346 with a team-high 3 home runs and 17 RBI and junior shortstop Ben Ramirez hit .310 with 3 homers, 13 RBIs and 10 runs.

When Gill arrived, he said he thought it was possible USC could make the NCAA Tournament in his first year despite the program reaching the postseason just once in the previous 14 seasons.

No one can say for sure where these Trojans would have ended up, and Gill doesn't want to make any predictions in that regard either, but from what he saw he wasn't wavering from his confidence in that regard.

"There's so many variables. I'd hate to go out publicly and say we were definitely a [tournament] team," he said. "The season was so young, but yeah, I had seen plenty enough from our pitching and our defense and our offense to say that we were definitely a [NCAA] regional-caliber team, for sure."

That goal will now carry over to next year, along with what the staff believes is a strong foundation established despite the short season.

There are still roster matters that need clarity. The NCAA has discussed offering an extra year of eligibility to spring sports athletes affected by this ordeal, but details have not been finalized yet. Gill said he has already had one senior reach out to him to express interest in utilizing that option.

Then there is the MLB draft, where the Trojans figure to lose a number of key contributors. But that's the game.

"Every year is new so I think we're going to build off the foundation we started. Me and my coaches have a plan, so we have a foundation laid and all the players coming back know what to expect now," Gill said. "... Our goal with the team was to bring back the standards that have been set by the [USC teams] that won all the championships, and they've done that. There's a different expectation out there because of the group of guys that we had this year."