After South Winn baseball’s end to their successful season, which included two playoff wins, we caught up with Warrior head coach Alex Smith for a Q&A to get his thoughts on how the season went and what the expectations are for next season.
Q: Going into the season, did you have any specific goals?
A: Our goal every year is to put ourselves in a position to make a postseason run by making continued progress throughout the season. We play a pretty intense schedule so our guys are challenged on a weekly basis and we do a good job of embracing that.
Q: Did most players play the same position most of the year?
A: We had some consistency in the defensive lineup with some upperclassmen that held down some key positions. In high school baseball, you are always going to have to mix up your lineup based upon who is pitching so we had a few guys play multiple spots in the field. By the end of the year, we settled into a nice spot with our defense and really played well down the stretch in that facet.
Q: What about batting?
A: This season, more than any I’ve coached, we mixed our lineup up based upon who was swinging well at the time. Hitting is really difficult and there are always going to be some ups and downs for guys during the year. We tried to gauge this through batting practice sessions, previous performances against certain pitchers, or how our guys were swinging in a particular week. Finding that right chemistry was challenging at times, but our guys never waivered when placed in different spots.
Q: Your team was young, with just one senior. Was it difficult to coach such a young team without many experienced players?
A: We certainly had some growing pains throughout the season, but it was also fun to see the growth they were able to make over the course of eight weeks. The month of May is challenging as we rarely have our full team together to practice so it took more time than usual with a young group to get settled in. We had some great leadership from Nolan Sabelka and our junior class to help the younger players adjust to the higher level of play and the speed of the game.
Q: Do you feel your team lived up to expectations?
A: We had a fun postseason run and winning two exciting games at home to start it made for some great experiences for our players and fans. Two walk off wins, with one in 11 innings, will be memorable for all. We knew we likely would face Kee High again at some point and it landed with the district final. It was expected that it could be a low scoring game, and unfortunately we came out on the wrong side of it, but we battled with a high level team all game and had chances in the end.
Q: What are your expectations for next season?
A: We definitely will come in with a mindset of competing at a high level and making a run at winning a lot of regular season games and putting ourselves in the position to host playoff baseball and get a shot at making it deep into the postseason. Most of our guys are playing multiple sports and the success they will experience in those will help with our competitive nature that we will bring in baseball.
Q: What are some things you think you can build off of for next season?
A: We will have a great nucleus of pitching returning for us next year and I think the strides we made on the defensive side of the ball will hopefully carry into next year. Our offense wasn’t necessarily where we wanted it to be, but with the number of at bats our guys got this year, we will see some growth in this area just with the experience they got at the varsity level.