2011 Reflection Season Begins!
Its the season for reflection. As the skies grey, and the leaves fall, and most of “my” baseball players turn their attention to Winter sports, I find myself reflecting on the 2011 baseball year. Typically, its during these off months that I frequent this blog just a bit more. I find articles of interest that I think are worth sharing. In my mind, I’m recapping the past 10 months of practices, games, and tournaments and some of what I think is worth putting to “paper”. At some point, my attention turns to 2012 and what that year might bring.
2011 was an exciting baseball year, for many reasons, for the teams I help coach and follow. UVA had a magical season…one that saw them post better results than any team in the history of the program. Luke and I had the opportunity to once again follow the team out to Omaha to compete in the CWS. While they came up short of their goal of winning the Championship, that didn’t diminish (at least for me) the magical run they had.
I had a chance to help coach Owen’s t-ball team…the Cubs. While it has been very rewarding to watch the older kids on Luke’s teams develop into players playing a game that resembles baseball, there’s something very refreshing about the innocence of the game at the very young ages. At the t-ball level, its an accomplishment to get kids to run the bases from 1st to 3rd rather than from 3rd to 1st. Its a big deal when kids actually run to the shortstop position when you tell them that is where they are playing. I absolutely loved being involved with this team. It was also nice to be the guy NOT in charge. Thanks, Mike Pausic! Most of these kids will move on to a machine pitch league next year.
Our 2011 Coke team had a magical run. After 2 years of futility, years when we competed but won few games, our boys had a vastly different experience. We were not a dominant team, but we were a team that played fundamental baseball. We were not mashers of the baseball, but we hit the ball hard enough and ran the bases well enough that we outscored our opponents. Our pitchers matured into strike throwers who trusted their defense to make plays and the defense did just that. All this added up to a 15-5 regular season record and the McIntire championship, the first for Coke in many years. No less than 6 of those wins were “come from behind” wins that showed the character of these young men. In the City Championship game, we lost to another turnaround story. Central’s Masonic Lodge team, coached by my friend Greg Porter, was 0-20 in 2010, and they were 22-0 in 2011. If we had to come up short in the finals, I’m glad Greg was able to hold the trophy. While we lose 4 outstanding players from the 1010 squad (Ryan Ingram, Sam Ryan, Jai Williams, and Iain Springman), our Coke team will return 8 ballplayers in 2012 and should be well positioned for another run at the league championship. Returning players include: Luke Burton, Jack Carey, Stephen Yoder, Jack Marshall, Henry Deal, Jack Emery, Tommy Mangrum and Ben Ryan. Regardless of our on the field results, however, it will be excited to see these 9-12 year olds continue to develop as ballplayers and young men.
As I’ve written before, in late 2010, we started putting together a travel baseball team of All Star level players from Central Virginia. In the Spring months, while the “rec” leagues were playing their games, this travel team practiced and played some scrimmage games, but we played secondarily to the local leagues. Starting in late July, however, we played 5 tournaments, and a total of 31 games, concluding the season the last weekend of October. This Total Performance Elite team was so much fun to coach with a mixture of players from 6 different local leagues (McIntire, Central, Monticello, Peachtree, Fluvanna and Waynesboro). They were/are a high character group of guys who competed hard against the best teams in the state of Virginia with very good results. Most, if not all, of those kids, will stick together in 2012 as we go back to “secondary” status in the Spring (all our players are required to play in local leagues), and then move to the full size diamond in the Fall. Players include: Ryan Sukovich, Matthew Seidel, Luke Burton, Andrew Porter, Ryan Porter, Nic Kent, Ethan Murray, Jack Pausic, Chris McGahren, Derek Domecq, Jack Carey, and Michael Vanderveer.
I’ll have more to say about the lessons learned in 2011, but if for nobody other than myself, it is good to have a recap like this down on “paper”. Thanks for indulging me.
