LJ baseball: Stat highlights

By Ed Piper

You have to give La Jolla right-hander Alex Monell a lot of credit for his senior season, because without sabermetrics the traditional statistics really don't do justice to him.

"Money", as his teammates called him earlier in the just-completed season, was the workhorse of the staff, pitching 57 1/3 innings and absorbing a lot of opponents' best shots.

The 6'5" starter, backed by a paltry offense hitting .201, still managed a 4-7 record, with a very good 2.32 ERA in 11 starts.

I bet if we could break down the run support he received (rather, failed to receive), Alex's effectiveness would show up even more. Plus it's pretty hard to keep your team in the game when they're averaging just over two runs a game (62 in 28 games). I don't have a breakdown for the games and innings he pitched, but La Jolla gave up five runs a game (139 in the same number of games), and they couldn't have all been pinned on the Vikings' pitchers. The defense was not stellar in the games I attended, to put it bluntly.

Psychologically, if the team fell behind early, no matter how tough a pitcher is he is going to have deal with the fact his offense is going to struggle to fight its way back.

I could spin it a whole bunch of ways, but Alex Monell's season of hard work deserves being spotlighted.

Another bright spot on the mound for Coach Gary Frank was Koa Scott, a sophomore who chewed up the second-most number of innings to Monell, 42 2/3. The right-hander faced the same obstacle his teammate did, lack of run support, so his record reflects that--0-5.

However, the pitcher with the Hawaiian first name limited opponents to an average of 3.28 earned runs. That's what I'm talking about. Unlike Monell, who was used only as a starter, Scott generated 14 appearances in a mix of starts (six) and relief (eight). You'll be hearing more about him next year as he grows and matures.

On offense, left-handed hitter Cooper McNally was the Vikings' only .300 hitter, with a .315 mark. The sophomore led the team in RBI's with eight. There weren't many baserunners to drive in. He also had six doubles. His family said he is going to be attending a showcase coming up shortly. He, apparently, is the only Viking team member to be going.

McNally took one for the team, filling in at shortstop for much of the season with Noah Brown having arm problems. He's more naturally a third baseman, I'm told.

Brown, who came up for a cup of coffee last year as a freshman, batted a respectable .270, with seven RBI's on 20 hits. As another athlete who suffered an arm injury as a youth, I hope and pray that the likeable sophomore can move past his arm troubles for next year. They are no fun, and block a young athlete from enjoying playing the game the way he would like to and from achieving what he would like to.

Gavin Graff, a freshman, played in all 28 games, as did Brown and McNally and Johnny Meyerott, hitting .256. Frank talked about the "deer in the headlights" experience that Noah Brown went through last year, thrown into the fray as a ninth-grader. He knows what Graff has gone through, as well. We're all looking forward to how each of these young players develops next season.

The availability and talent of athletes in high school go through cycles, and La Jolla is going through one of those cycles. The school's athletic program is not big on recruiting athletes from out of the attendance area, as many other schools do to stock their teams. An education at LJHS is well-known and respected. Each of the student athletes has the opportunity to receive that.

A growing factor in today's reality is the non-scholastic world of baseball travel teams and showcases, which siphon off players who in the past would have likely played for their home high school. That no longer is the case, so Frank has to compete with potential players' hopes and dreams for stardom and attention from scouts and colleges via the travel circuit.

Non-school ball didn't conflict with school teams in my day, which is a long way in the rear window. The phenomena of showcases and travel teams didn't yet exist. My brother and I, and our friends, played in youth league, Pony League, Colt League, and American Legion, but all the while through our four high school years we were able to play for the school teams without a conflict.

The clock isn't going to be turned back, so let's appreciate the students' myriad of choices and the competing forces that put them in a bit of a quandary these days on whether they're going to compete on their high school team. Let's enjoy the play of the student athletes we do get to see in the Viking uniform. More importantly, let's support them in enjoying their high school years, because all of us older folks know how final the closing of that time in our lives is--ain't no more playing ball for school after our high school or college years (except for the few who go on for a taste of the pros).