Some might call a one-win baseball season a disaster.
But not Coach Josh Anderson of Montezuma.
“Our guys never gave up,” he said. “We’re excited to look ahead. We don’t lose anyone off this year’s team.”
Last year, the Braves were 13-7 and figured to have quite a bit of talent returning. But as we’ve documented in this space before, events, such as college football commitments, early graduations and others caused almost half the potential returnees to sit out the summer, as regards baseball.
“Our young guys got more repetition at the varsity level,” Anderson said.
But there was no full JV season this year in which to get those reps. And Montezuma had to sit out much of the previous season because of COVID.
“We had different expectations this year than what we’re used to,’ Anderson said.
The Braves had 10 players to start. “We had kids who wanted to be there and we’re proud of who we had, Anderson told KGRN’s Chris Varney on his radio show.
Anderson brought up four eighth graders later in the season, using two of them extensively.
The coach doesn’t foresee any members of this year’s squad graduating at the semester next season.
“We’ve got good kids coming back and that makes it exciting,” Anderson said.
Cruz De Jong and the Braves already are excited about next season. (File).One of those, certainly, is Owen Cook, who had a spectacular junior season. He put in a lot of work during this off-season with his dad, Kyle, who is one of Anderson’s assistant coaches.
One result: A batting average that rose from .176 to .422.
“Now, there are a couple of colleges after him for baseball,” Anderson said.
Cook’s improvement as a hitter was spectacular. Last year, he hit .176, on 12×68.
This summer, it was .422 on 19×45.
As a pitcher, Owen threw 49.1 innings this season and had a 3.69 earned run average. Opponents hit .238 against him. He walked 24 hitters, and struck out 82. His record: 1-9.
Last season, Owen had a 2.33 earned run average in 57.0 innings. Opponents hit .201. He walked 20 and struck out 58. His record was 6-5.
“I think we do a good job in the off-season with our pitching,” Anderson said. “Our guys don’t issue a lof walks. Our pitchers did a great job of keeping us in games,” he said.
Anderson said Coach Kyle Cook “does a great job working on our hitting. Hitters are all different,” he said.
Anderson wants enough players to come out so that the Braves can play junior varsity as well as varsity seasons.
“I like the JV level because we can get the guys game experience and it helps their confidence,” he said.
Also, the Braves need to recruit the hallways harder, and work their own system, he said. “We need to do a better job at the youth league level getting kids out,” he said.
Meanwhile, expect the Braves to put in a lot of off-season work. Eagerly.