Baseball aims to maintain a shot at Ocean league Championships

Mia Lopez-ZubiriStaff WriterDespite starting their league season with an inconsistent record, the varsity baseball team has hit their stride with several consecutive wins, leading up to a win Monday, April 23 against Torrance High School.Coach Sheldon Philip-Guide contributes the insufficient number of runs scored on the team during various games to a lack of positive attitude, which he says the team sometimes loses. However, he says that the team has been playing well in recent games.“There are some games that we lose that we have a great attitude and a great effort,” Philip-Guide said. “And then there are some games that we win that we have a bad attitude and a bad effort. [Tuesday], we got the win, but it wasn’t a quality win.”“We beat El Camino Real who we had lost to at the beginning of the season,” Padilla said. “That was a big way to start turning around our season and now we have a winning streak going, and hopefully we keep that momentum going for the rest of the season.”According to Philip-Guide, the team’s practices are crucial to be able to perform well.“You practice like you play, so if you practice hard and work on things that you aren’t very good at it’s going to show in the game,” Philip-Guide said.Throughout the season, the team has improved in several ways, paving the way for their wins.“At the beginning of the season we weren’t hitting as much and we weren’t coming through in certain situations,” Padilla said. “Now we’re executing and putting everything together, and it’s showing in the results.”Although the team lost several games at the beginning of the season, the players were able to pinpoint their problems in order to get better.“I think that early on we weren’t playing good baseball,” Philip-Guide said. “We had a lot of mental and physical errors; we weren’t hitting the ball very well. After the beginning of the season we started putting things together and turning things around- hopefully we can still keep going on that upswing.”Their progress had led to several successes, leaving the team hopeful for making playoffs.“We’ve been playing more as a team and less as individuals,” Tyre-Vigil said. “A lot also has to do with hitting and closing games out.”The team also had to adapt to each other’s individual skills, having several new players join the varsity team this season. According to several players however, the new players quickly became a part of the team.“As a team we’ve learned each other’s strengths and weaknesses,” Padilla said. “We know what to say to each other to pick each other up.”The team hopes to keep having successful wins throughout the rest of their season, pushing them forward to CIF playoffs. Last year, the team won Ocean League with a record of 10-0-0.“Right now it’s a solid point and through league I hope we keep getting our record better so that by the time play offs come I think we will be good to go,” senior right-fielder and captain Trent Nelson said. “I think we are believing ourselves because we’ve done it in the past so we can do it now.”Philip-Guide believes that if the team keeps playing well, they will make it to play-offs.“We’re a very good team, we have a lot of talent and we can play with anybody when we play well,” Philip-Guide said. “We want to defend our Ocean League championship and go into play-offs playing our best baseball.”mlopezzubiri@thesamohi.com