Well, after a lot of water pushing, drainage ditch engineering and puddle extraction we were able to get our opening series in this past weekend at Good old Cecil Ballow ballpark.

The kids played well enough to come away with a 3-1 series victory, but as a team we were all in agreement that we still have a ton of room for improvement. Any coach will tell you when the kids accept responsibility for their performance then you have a chance to get better as the year progresses and I believe we have that capability.

We showed some early flashes of being the type of team we want to evolve into. We scored our opening run of the season by stealing home and it set up exactly like we had worked on in practice. From a coaching stand point it was nice to see the guys execute that situation exactly like we had worked on. Offensively, we are like everyone else at this point. Our timing at the plate isn’t quite there, but by game 4 we were on time with our swings more consistently.

We played solid defense on the weekend only committing one infield error in 4 games, and as anticipated our outfielders were roaming around and covering a lot of ground.

Our pitching did a good job of limiting our opposition to 5 runs in two games on day one. Day two saw us do a really nice job of competing and grinding that fourth game out and finding a way to get it done.

Now it’s time to work on the things we saw from this first series and continue to strive at getting better each time out.

Our opening weekend is upon us and as every coach and player knows we are all still like little kids when the actual first game rolls around.

We got off to a little bit of a rough start at yesterday’s practice so we had to stop and remind the guys that just because the calendar says it’s February that doesn’t change how we work and prepare. We had a case of “I’m gonna do more on this play,” as opposed to just executing what we’ve been taught. Once we relaxed and got back to each guy executing his individual job so that we may function as a unit, the pace of practice really picked up as did our execution.

We continue to work on the two “B’s” and you could see the improvement from last week. Our bunting competition was solid and we are doing better with our leads and reads on the bases.

Defensively we are making steady progress. We will be improved with our INF defense and our ability to pick it and throw it.  Our top 4 in the OF all run really well so watching them glide around will be fun.

The pitchers are working hard as we continue to work at better utilizing our lower half. We looked like a staff of old men at the end of last week with our sore hip flexors etc. The nice part is they are working hard and they can feel the difference in the way the ball comes out of their hands. It’s a process becoming a man isn’t it fellas?

The conditioning test is in the books and our practices have officially begun for the semester. Our conditioning test went well and as a staff we were pleased because we were able to lower our time requirements from last year and the guys were able to pass and allow us to move forward.

The first week of practice consisted of a lot of fundamental position work and reps as we attempt to work up to the tempo and pace that we want to practice and play. The fundamental defensive work went very well, and for the first week we were able to play “up tempo” catch and throw at a good pace.

Offensively we spent the first week covering the fundamentals of our offensive philosophy, which meant a lot of time on base running and bunting. Coach Schlieman does a great job with the two “B’s” and those are two areas we take great pride in being good at. One of the things we tell our guys is that offensively we want to be an “amoeba”, able to have the ability to conform to whatever the situation requires.

The pitchers reported back in good throwing shape which allowed us to have a scrimmage at the end of the week. We will work systematically to increase their workload over the next few weeks and get them game ready. Our bullpen work was adequate in the first session and very good in session two.

The scrimmage was productive from the stand point of being very solid defensively and the pitchers did a good job of working quickly and throwing strikes. Overall the first week was very productive and as a staff we felt that we certainly have things to get up to speed on, but as a whole we are further along than last year at this time.

First off, I would like to thank Ping!Baseball for allowing me to share some insight and thought into our program.
The Texan baseball team is officially off and running for the spring semester.  We met as a team last night to welcome everybody back and outline this week’s schedule.

We started the meeting by congratulating our young men on their success in the classroom during the fall semester.  We had 17 of our 27 players finish with a 3.00 GPA or higher.  We also had 9 players finish with a 3.25 or higher and one young man, Tim Rainey, finished with a 4.0 GPA.

We also addressed the final standings of our Texan Baseball Olympics that we competed in during the fall.  The guys competed in various competitions throughout the fall.  These included things such as:
•    Obstacle course run
•    Ping Pong Tournament
•    Dodge Ball Tournament
•    Wally Ball Tournament
•    Free Throw and 3 point shooting contest
•    Rock climbing wall competition

We had several other competitions in there and then concluded with a GPA contest.  Team World Wide won with a 3.18 cumulative GPA and the Dirty Dozen finished 2nd with a 3.0.  With the scoring breakdown the final standings ended in a tie between Team World Wide and The Dirty Dozen while the Purple Cobras finishing 3rd.  In order to break the tie and have a winner we are going to do what we pride ourselves on in our program and COMPETE again.  We will be using today’s conditioning test as the tie breaker.

Our conditioning test consists of a 300 yd shuttle test divided into 25 yd increments.  The players have times they must meet according to their position and they must pass both segments in order to be allowed to begin baseball activities tomorrow.  As a coaching staff we are excited to watch this group of guys compete against each other today.  One of the things that we learned about these young men in the fall is that they love to embrace challenges and they really enjoy being around each other.  This afternoon should be entertaining.