Returning Starters

can someone answer this ???

We played West the other night and one kid that really impressed me in the legion was on the bench the whole game for the life of me I cant figure this one out. He ws awesome in the legon this past summer....I have posted several commits about this kid Brandon Johnson. Has he played this year. With all the errors that game you sure could have used this kid. Maybe yall will get to face Moore next time.

 

A certain amount of velocity is genetic. We have had kids come into our program with very good arms for freshman and alot with just average arms. And we have had alot of those very good arms for freshman end up with average arms for seniors because they were four month players that did not work in the off season. Matt Harrison was a third round draft choice a couple of years ago and he was 72-75 as a Freshman. I wouldnt call that outstanding or freakish genetics would you? He worked his butt off for four years and as a Soph was 80-83 as a Junior was 85-88 and as a Senior was 89-92. There can be no doubt that he would have never achieved these results without working at the level he did during his career. We have had others that were high 70's guys that ended up in the mid 80's through hard work and were able to go on to play at the college level. We have had freshman come in at 78-80 and leave 80-82. What did they do? Nothing. Played four years of HS ball and didnt work at it in the off season. Genetics plays a role but without the work ethic that it takes it means nothing in my opinion. There have been a ton of kids at all programs that were not blessed with great genetics that have had great careers and moved on to play at the next level. What all these kids have in common is a great work ethic and a strong desire to be the best they can be. I will take that over genetics without a work ethic any day. One more thing we faced a lefty from Cardinal Gibbons yesterday. I would say that he was on the short end of the genetics deal. He was around 5'7 about 140lbs. And he was one nasty dude on the hill. He was sidearm , submarine and 3/4 on his delivery. He had a great 2 seam fastball a 4 seamer he could locate and a great change and curveball. He located all four and threw them at anytime in the count. We got 6 hits and plated only 2 runs. Our guy pitched great but we lost 3-2. This kid is one of the best pitchers we have faced in a while. I sure wish we would have faced a genetic stud maybe we would have fared better.

 

If I wasn't done with this subject, I'd say "AMEN" Coach May!