Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Tigers baseball look to make it three in a row

Heath Hottinger taking a swing against Cleburne.
This Friday the Terrell baseball team will start the long journey to the playoffs. The Tigers have made the playoffs the last two years, but making
it a third time will be a bit more difficult in the revamped District 15-4A.  Leading the Tigers will be new Terrell baseball Coach Gage Davis. Coach
Davis was selected to lead the program in June after Coach Casey Rush accepted a job out of the District.

Davis moved to Terrell from the Rockwall Heath baseball program, who made it to the State Regional Finals last year and finished with a 40-3 record.

Besides Terrell, District 15-4A will include holdover playoff teams Poteet, Red Oak and Forney. Joining the holdovers are playoff teams from last year's
district 16-4A, Corsicana and Ennis. Rounding out the tough district are
Waxahachie, West Mesquite and Lancaster.

Coach Davis sees the favorites in the district as Poteet, Waxahachie and
Corsicana.
Coach Gage Davis at his introduction to the Tigers in June.

The Tigers play a tough non-district schedule that includes tournaments in
DeSoto, Corsicana and Rockwall. The tough tournament schedule may not
produce a desired win-loss record, but it will get the team ready for when
the play begins on district games that actually count.

When asked about his expectations for the Tigers, Coach Davis hoped for the kids to just play hard and never give up. He expects his team this year to
compete hard every game and hopefully play their way into the playoffs for a 3rd consecutive year. Gage said, "our new district is going to be tough, but we have the talent to compete with any of them on any given day."  Fridays practice will start around 3:20. A try out will be held starting
around 5. Coach Davis expects about 15-20 kids to tryout.

Senior Cody Weishaar taking a practice swing last year. 
Asked for advice he could give to a young kid trying out for a sport, Gage said "to make sure that they are prepared and in shape for whatever sport
they are trying out for." Gage went on to explain when trying a sport for the first time or a sport they haven't played in a long time, that they'll
be behind others who've been playing for a while. He added, "it will take dedication and lots of extra work to get caught up."

The Tigers will have four scrimmages prior and a home contest against Garland Lakeview before playing in the Desoto Tournament that begins on
February 24th. A complete varsity and junior varsity schedule is posted on www.ihigh.com/terrelltigers.

100 inning baseball game

The Tigers will also be holding a 100 inning baseball game fundraiser at
10am on Saturday, February 5th at the ball field in Ben Gill Park.

Not sure what a 100 inning game is? The rules for the game are: every hitter
starts with a 3 ball 2 strike
count, so they only get 1 pitch. After 3 outs the bases are cleared, but the
team that was hitting gets to continue to hit until they have 15 outs.

After 15 outs, the team at bat goes to the field and the team that was
fielding goes to hit. Every 3 outs counts as an inning (instead of 6).

The game will start at 10AM. It's free to attend, but they will be taking
donations throughout the game. Come out and spend part of your Saturday at
the ballfield in Ben Gill Park. The kids can use all the support we can give
them!  I will have more on the 100 inning game as the date gets closer.