NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Luke Mardian of the Medicine Hat High Hawks unleashes a pitch during a senior high school exhibition baseball game against the Monsignor McCoy Colts Monday night at McCoy Field.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The Medicine Hat High Hawks senior boys baseball team is looking to the fundamentals for success this spring.
The Hawks kicked off their spring season with a 5-4 exhibition win over the Monsignor McCoy Colts. Head coach Cam Rittinger says they were just happy to be out on the diamond again.
“As the snow melts and the grass starts getting a little green, you kind of are itching to get outside, especially when you’re running things at the school,” Rittinger said. “These guys that are playing, it’s their first time outdoors and seeing pitching and we get beautiful weather. We’ve been playing indoors and practising hitting in the cage but it’s just not the same. So it was exciting to get out here, it was exciting to get a win, whether it was exhibition or not, and hopefully we start with a little momentum.”
The Hawks are coming off a second-place finish in provincials last season, falling to the Colts in the league finals that spanned two days due to a rain delay. They entered the finals last season with a perfect record, falling just the one game short of completing it. Rittinger says it was nice to have that record but he says they’re never concerned with a record heading into playoffs.
“The playoffs is, everyone’s going so it’s just about seeding, you’re going to have to beat everybody at some point to win anyway,” Rittinger said. “We don’t put a lot of stock in that, it’s just kind of one game at a time and take what happens. Baseball’s a funny game like that, you play 162 games in the Bigs and it’s a very rare feat that anyone gets 100 wins, a lot of teams are 50/50. So you can’t look into it too much, baseball is a funny game and it humbles you.”
Rittinger likes his group heading into the season and sees a lot of strength with his returning players, especially up the middle at catcher, middle infielder and in centre field.
“When you’re looking at putting the team together, that’s kind of the ideal situation there, to be strong up the middle,” Rittinger said.
The Hawks had eight players graduate from last year’s team, a hole that requires turnover. Rittinger says their returning players remain in the important positions. When looking at the strengths of his team, he says they will find success through pitching and defence.
“Our offence last year could be hot or cold and we won a lot of games last year by 15-2, 15-3, we 10-runned run a lot of teams, and so when we got to playoffs and the pressure starts to mount and it’s a close situation, we hadn’t really had that opportunity all year,” Rittinger said. “We’re going to do a lot better job of playing under pressure, throwing strikes, and we’re going to rely more on pitching and defence and timely hitting, rather than just beating teams up. So a 5-4 game with loaded bases in the last inning for our first game out, I told the guys that’s the start here. That’s the way and we came out on top and we want to put that pressure on.”
