Matt Holland lives in a four-bedroom house near the Gulf of Mexico, he has his marketing degree from Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and he's hitting a robust .385 for the college baseball team.

"The best part about it? It's always nice, it's always warm," said Holland, who graduated from Marion High School in 2006. "I really, truly did not know how much of an advantage southern baseball players have over the northern players."

It struck him when he saw Texas Little Leaguers playing baseball in December. Outdoors.

"Up north," he said, "you're just hanging out, playing basketball or wrestling."

Right now, Holland is hanging out with some of the best hitters in Division I baseball with eight home runs and 43 RBIs to complement his .385 average.

He ranks 20th in the country in total bases, 21st in hits and 44th in average, but he'd rather not know the details.

"One of the biggest things I've done in the past is, I got caught up in my statistics," he said. "Then I'd start pressing during games, 'I've got to get two hits, I've got to get three hits, I can't do this.'

"And then it ended up being a downward spiral for me and I ended up in a slump at the end of the season. So this year I really haven't paid attention to anything. I just kind of go out there and take it one pitch and one at-bat at a time."

Holland, 23, has not encountered many slumps during his career. He's always been a strong hitter and helped Marion High School reach the 2006 state tournament when he hit .482 with 13 homers and 51 RBIs. He also compiled a 7-3 record on the mound with a 1.04 ERA for the Indians that season.

He hit .358 and .363 during his two years at Iowa Central Community College in 2007 and 2008, took a redshirt season in 2009 to recover from an arm injury, then hit .357 with three homers and 22 RBIs at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi last season.

The NCAA adopted new bat rules this year that have deflated offensive numbers across the country, but Holland apparently did not get the memo. His batting average has climbed 28 points, he's hit nearly three times as many home runs and practically doubled his RBIs.

Holland credits his increased power to adjustments made while playing in the Valley Baseball League in Virginia last summer. He said he'd been swinging too much with his arms, dragging the bat through the zone, instead of using his hands. The adjustment paid off.

"I found my true swing again that I had in junior college and I had in high school, where I had a nice, smooth swing," he said.

Holland is a 6-foot-3, 210-pound outfielder. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (29-21) took a seven-game winning streak into its series in the Southland Conference this weekend and hopes to gain an automatic spot in the NCAA playoffs by winning the conference tournament in late May.

Holland would love to play pro baseball after college and has filled out a few questionnaires for major league teams as the June draft approaches. "That's my goal and my dream," he said.

He's also pursuing marketing jobs in the "real" world, with job interviews in Corpus Christi and Houston. "I'll see what happens in the next month or two," he said.

He thinks he'll probably stay in Texas, but so far has resisted becoming a full-fledged Texan.

"No cowboy boots, no cowboy hat," he reported. "And I haven't started saying 'Y'all' yet, either."