Silas Baseball Season 2023

 ** Guest Blogger **

Eric Hendrickson

Although last year didn't go as well as we had hoped, there is much to be excited about this year.  We returned a good portion of the core of our team from last year and the new kids have some talent and good attitudes.

Back row, left to right - Coach Spencer, Coach Kyle, Coach Eric, and Coach Cameron

Middle row, left to right - Isaac, Silas, Owen , Knova, and Blayne

Front row, left to right - Easton, Jude, Camden, and Ryan

Not pictured - Jacob

May 15th - Game #1 away vs. Clearwater

rainout - rescheduled to June 13th

Phoebe had a game in Haysville at 7:45 so I was only able to stay for half of this game.  Clearwater had the same record as us at 5-2 so we were expecting a battle.

Stacee was not able to make this game so she asked me to take some pictures.  I remembered to take one and it was this one below that was right before Silas smashed the homerun to left field.  I am guessing the ball traveled over 150' in the air and almost rolled to the fence.  Isaac's mom took the pictures above.

Silas also had a soft liner between second and first that resulted in a homerun due to overthrows and he walked his final at bat.  The game wasn't much of a battle as we scored five each inning and gave up 10 winning 15-10.  Silas was pumped to tell me about a person he threw out at home from left field.  This was a good win for us.

May 17th - Game #2 vs. Mulvane 2

We started out with a pretty decent Mulvane team.  Had it not been for good defense on their part, we would have blown this team away with our great hitting.

Nice looking swing, Silas.

Silas is a really good catcher.

We played really well.  The hitting was great.  The swing zone kept the kids disciplined.  Isaac pitched a good 3 innings and Knova pitched a great 1 inning.  Silas hit 3 hard ground balls.  Unfortunately they were all right to the 3rd baseman or shortstop.  He beat out two throws and they got a force out on the other.  Great start 8-4.  

May 22nd - Game #3 vs. Mulvane 1

In Mulvane again.  A picture of me hitting pregame ground balls.

We pray before every game.

Nice looking hitting stance (below) and smile (above)

We started out the game with hot bats.  Had it not been for a good play by the center fielder catching a ball and Isaac not sliding to third, we easily would have gotten 5 runs first inning, instead we got three.

Silas pitched the first 1.5 innings.  He pitched alright.  He gave up 5 the first inning and walked the bases loaded with one out the second inning.  Knova came in and got the out without giving up a run.  It was 5-4 going into the last inning and we scored 5 runs.  Knova gave up some hits and walks the last inning but we ended up winning 9-8.  

He fundamentally looks pretty good.  He just needs to keep his emotions in check and have confidence in himself.

Silas had an infield single on a hard ground ball to third.  He is hitting hard grounders, just right at people.  He was also hit by a pitch and walked.  He played well at catcher.  We had to have a talk with him about controlling emotions and not showing up the umpire.  We won an ugly game.

May 24th - Game #4 vs. Rose Hill

We followed up an ugly game with our best game.

I will continue to say Silas is a superior catcher.

Silas had a swinging bunt, hit by pitch, and flyball triple to deep right center field.  We had homeruns from Blayne and Knova.

At shortstop he got a stealer out at 2nd base with a great throw from the catcher, Isaac.

Tough group of ball players,

Silas's student teacher came to watch the game.

The umpire was a family friend.

Good attitudes, good crowd, good game.  We won 13-2.

May 31st - Game #5 vs. Haysville 1 (Soto team)

This was one of those games you want to forget.

The team during pregame was sluggish and not focused.  The coaches addressed it but not well enough.

Silas continues to be a wall at catcher.

He also played shortstop.  The other team did not put the ball in play so no action for the fielders.

We followed up our best game with our worst game.  The strike zone was far too small.  Blayne and Jacob pitched ok but got few strikes called and the other team did not swing the bat.  We played two innings, walked in 5 runs each inning and the other team won 10-2.  I voiced my frustrations with the ump as did Cameron.  I also voiced it after the game to the director.  If a super small strike zone is called, it makes for a long game of watching players walk around the bases.  No one wants that.  Their pitcher wasn’t very good but we couldn’t make contact and swung at bad pitches.  Silas struck out and grounded out.  He played well at catcher as did Blayne and Isaac.  Looking forward to a rematch with them.

June 2nd - Game #6 vs. Haysville 3

rainout - rescheduled to June 8th

This game started off with some debate at the coaches meeting before the game.  I let the other coach (of the other team) know that they shouldn't pitch their pitcher that was warming up due to that pitcher pitching the previous night.  I didn't want to be "that coach" but this is a safety rule and I wanted to keep the kid safe.  The coaches didn't follow the rule and pitched him anyway.

We had a few subs tonight, Emmit and Otto, because I was concerned we were only going to have 6 players.  We ended up with 8 of our own players plus the two reserves.

We started off with hot bats.  We scored three and could have had more.  Our first out was due to Blayne being thrown out at home.  We didn't hit anymore that inning after that out.

Below, Silas, celebrating after his first homer of the night....He also had one later in the game and a walk.

Silas had already pitched 6 innings this week so he couldn't pitch tonight.  He has turned into our ace.

I was not happy with our boys after the first inning.  We missed an out opportunity with two outs.  If we would have gotten that out, it would have been 3-0 at the end of the inning.  We didn't get the out and ended up being down 3-5 at the end of one inning.  The boys were not focused and I was not happy.

I left in the second inning to go coach 14u (Phoebe's team) so I left Kyle in charge.

We ended up losing 8-7 in four innings.  

June 5th - Game #7 vs. Haysville 1 (Soto team)

The first of three games this week.  We got to replay the team we lost to.  Knova was to pitch but was sick.  Then Isaac was to pitch, but he said his knee hurt.  I didn’t plan on pitching Silas but he started the game and pitched great.  He was throwing hard and throwing strikes.  He had 6 strikeouts through 2 innings and only three walks.  This was the second time we played this team where they did not hit a ball in play. 

I see, (by looking at the pictures Stacee took) that Silas needs to pull with his gloveside elbow.  It will help him with his power.  Pictures are nice in letting me know things I can work with him on to fine tune.

Silas popped out to third and grounded out to second.  Their pitcher threw lob balls, which is actually hard to hit.

The second inning ended with a caught throw down stealing at 3^rd base.  Blayne rifled it to Owen who got the tag out on Brodie Swanson.  The other team's coach got mad and yelled at Brodie which caused Brodie’s mom to come to his defense.  His parents pulled him from the game and another parent pulled their son as well.  They were left with 6 players and had to forfeit.  

Although the score was 0-0 at the end of two innings, we got the win due to forfeit.

June 7th - Game #8 vs. Haysville 3

We played the team we scrimmaged at the start of the year.  We are suffering with sickness.  Blayne was out with HFMD.  Jacob returned from heat exhaustion and Knova from flu like symptoms.  Isaac started the game pitching and was doing ok and Silas was catching.  Silas said he wasn’t feeling good, and it was evident as he wasn’t his aggressive self.  After the first inning, I switched Isaac and Silas and things went well after that.

Silas hit a hard ground ball to third and beat out the throw.  He had a ground out to the pitcher (half swing) and a walk.  The bats were hot the first inning and not afterwards.  The other team's pitcher threw a lot of strikes but wasn't overpowering.

It was 4-4 going into the fourth inning.  Silas had only given up one run in 2 innings.  The other team brought in a new pitcher and we got three runs.  Silas closed out the game 1-2-3.  We won 7-4.

June 14th - Double Header

Game #9 vs. Clearwater and Game #10 vs. Mulvane 2

First game of the evening...

We were hoping to keep up our good play and go into the post season with momentum.  We had more than good play, we had exceptional play tonight.

First game was a rematch against Clearwater.  We could tell the boys were ready to go in our pregame warmups.

The dynamic duo of Silas and Isaac at pitcher and catcher.  Silas pitched extremely well for two innings.  I didn't pitch him anymore innings because we were already up big and didn't need to.  He didn't give up a run or a hit and only one walk.

Silas also experimented with throwing a change up, which was effective.

He started off the game with a triple to right center.  He also had a walk and hard ground ball to left field for a double.

Jacob pitched a great inning and after giving up a few runs, Blayne dominated the last three outs of his inning.  The pitchers combined for a no hitter and we won 10-2.

Second game of the evening...

After dominating the last three batters, I decided to keep Blayne pitching.  It was the right decision.

Silas caught really well and this ump did a great job of calling a big zone.

Silas hit a hard ground ball to right center for a single, left field for a double, and popped out to the pitcher.

Happy coaches!

Happy Owen.  He crushed a fly ball to deep left field for a double.  Smile and smack it.

Hitting is contagious and we did a lot of hitting tonight.  Blayne threw a complete game and allowed no runs and no hits.  We threw two no hitters tonight!  We won 11-0 in four innings.

That is a happy team excited to play some post season baseball.

Popee came to watch as he often does.

Post Season Tournament

Monday, June 26th 7:45 vs. Udall

Silas pitched this first game against Udall. My friend Red has a relative that coaches this team and Red was in attendance.

Silas pitched well striking out six and only walking one.  Knova pitched the other two innings.  He had a single (soft line drive to center field) and two walks in the game.

Silas has corrected his pitch by pulling with his glove side.  This has increased his velocity.  Very good form.

Silas is good at framing.

Silas has gotten quicker with his release on the throw to second.

We were up 2-0 in the last inning when we gave up the lead with 3 runs scored against us mainly due to errors.  It was 3-2 when we were up to bat.  We loaded the bases with two outs.  Knova was up and had a 3-2 count.  He ended up walking to score the tying run.  Blayne was beaned the next at bat to win the game.  This was a great game against the best team we have played so far this year.

Many fans in attendance tonight.

Tuesday, June 27th 6:00 vs. Winfield

We are now to the final four teams.  I had watched Winfield play the night before and thought we were the better team.  It played out that way.

The Winfield coach was also the Winfield rec director and had umped the 14u softball game that we won in Winfield.  He remembered me.

Silas pitched the first two innings giving up one run.  He pitched well.

Silas had a double to right center and two walks.

We were up 9-4.  As a slight stall tactic, I pulled Knova with two outs to bring in Isaac, who was playing catcher.  Isaac closed out the inning and we ended up not getting to hit the final inning.

Tuesday, June 27th 7:45 vs. Douglas

Championship Game

We had scouted Douglas and knew they would be extremely good.  It would take a dominate pitching performance from Blayne to keep us in this game.  We held the other team to 1-0 with 2 outs in the 2^nd inning.  We had an easy pitcher to first throw that went astray and lead to a 5 run inning.  We gave up after that and lost 10-0 in 3.5 innings.  Silas struck out twice, but swung the bat well though.

No pictures of Silas catching in this game, but he was a rockstar, possibly his best night of catching.  He worked hard to keep runners from stealing and tried to do his part to help his team make the extra outs by throwing down to all bases.

We got second place medals that I put on the head of each of our players as Frank announced each name.

We had a last team prayer and talk.  Next year we will move to 12u.

Stacee posted on facebook about the game and our friends Gage and Kim and their kids attended.  It was nice talking to them after the game.

Popee's neighbor, Jose, rode with Paul to come watch Silas play.

I know I can be hard on Silas, harder than I was on the girls anyways, but he sure does play hard, smart, and well.  He is a really good athlete and son.  Looking forward to watching, and probably coaching, many more years of baseball