By THOMAS EGAN
After finishing the regular season as the number one seed in districts, the baseball team suffered a 4-1 loss to Colonial in the first round.
“We took them too lightly because we had beaten them twice before,” sophomore Ian McKinney said. “They came out to play and our heads weren’t right.”
The boys baseball team’s regular season ended with a 14-9 record overall.
The team had an 8-1 record in district play, including a victory against third ranked Cypress Creek, who had a 8-3-1 record.
“We match up to other district teams pretty well,” sophomore Dylan Dragon said. “We’ve beaten them; everybody is young, just like us.”
Dragon had a .286 batting average along with 16 hits and 12 runs batted in.
The only regular season district loss came against seventh-ranked Freedom, 0-3. Freedom had a record of 2-6.
“[A major weakness of ours is] our inconsistency,” junior Robert Irwin said. “We’d be lights out one game then in the next we would have to find something to get ourselves going.”
Irwin had a batting average of .250 with a home run and five runs batted in.
Age has played a major role in the season. The team has 19 players on their roster including four seniors, seven juniors, six sophomores and two freshman.
“We have a young team. We will be composing a mostly junior ball club next year,” head coach Pete Post said.
Overall, the team had a .289 batting average with 197 hits, 130 RBI’s and 20 home runs.
Junior Frank Grandinette led the team in RBI’s with 19. He also has a .306 batting average with 22 hits.
The most influential game for the team was their game against second- ranked Timber Creek, who had a 9-4 record. The Wolves were leading the entire game 8-0, but in the last inning the team rallied back to win on a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth.
“Our comeback made us believe in ourselves,” sophomore Mitchell Barati said. “It made us believe that we could beat any team we faced.
Barati had a .299 batting average with 20 hits and 14 RBI’s.
The team’s pitching rotation also played a crucial role in their victories. As a whole, the rotation allowed 100 runs to be scored on them, as opposed to their 171 runs.
“We had two really strong starting pitchers and one good relief pitcher,” McKinney said.
McKinney had a 4-4 record with an ERA of 2.23. He lead the team in strikeouts with 63.
The team is now focusing on next season and building on their skills to get past districts and possibly into states.
“Our goal is to go deeper into the playoffs,” Irwin said. “We felt that we could do it this season but we came up short.”