Baseball plays it safe
Senior Chris Alanis slides into the home base. As one of his teammates had just hit the ball to the outfield, Alanis took the opportunity to run from second base to home and barely made it safe as the Hays catcher was prepared to tag him out.
May 5, 2016
Hours before the game actually starts they begin to prepare, tossing the ball back and forth. The ball goes straight into the glove and you hear a loud splat only able to imagine the amount of force being placed behind the ball as he throws it following through with his whole body.
Swinging the bats around as they stare down the ball that is flying toward them hoping to time it perfectly as the are about to embark in a long tiresome seven inning game.
Halfway through the season the baseball team is 14-5 overall but 3-3 in district. They hope to improve and make changes as the next few games roll around.
“We have a whole new ball club, with a few guys going to play college baseball, those guys were our nucleus, we don’t have the power we had last year,” Head coach Samuel Degelia said. “Some of these guys that are in playing role its their first time to play varsity baseball so they have to learn real fast on how to be leaders for the other guys and we are still trying to find leadership roles but again everyone needs to know their role.”
Pitching has been a huge obstacle for the team since losing players caused the whole team dynamic to change.
“One obstacle that we are overcoming is out pitching,”Degelia said. “I was a little afraid of our pitching because we lost two of our good ones. Our defense has improved our hitting for our first 13 games has been wonderful.”
Out on the field the boys put their game faces on.
“The attitude overall, everyone has gotten more serious,” Senior baseball player William Gawlik said. “We stopped joking around as much and actually started playing baseball instead of just messing around.”
To coach Degelia baseball is more than a sport, it is filled with life lessons that he hopes his guys will pick up while playing.
“You come out to baseball and you have to be on time to practice, you get out of school you have a job and enter the real world you have to be on time, you’re going to have a boss and these guys have to take ownership of the team and get along with the people around them.”
And as the season comes to a quick end coach Degelia has a little bit of advice for his seniors.
“Baseball is just like life,” Degelia said. “Its not always fair, but it will teach you lessons. Not everything is going to go your way but you have to work for what you want.
