LJ baseball: 6-4 so far

By Ed Piper

La Jolla High baseball coach Gary Frank, whose squad is 6-4 after two tournaments with City League play directly ahead, notes his 2019 edition has already equaled last season's win total.

"We are making progress," said Frank, in his 16th year as head coach, "but as high school teams often do, we have experienced some highs and lows through the first month."

A bigger issue that Frank has his focus on is developing the culture of the team.

"Right now, our emphasis is on changing the mentality and culture of the team, and being more consistent on the field."

The veteran coach, a former Viking star and professional player in Organized Baseball as a second baseman, explained, "After two losing seasons, none of the current roster has been a part of a winning team, and we are trying to raise their expectations to expect to be able to win every game."

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Later, Frank had further, detailed comments on the team's progress:

"I think a major factor to matching last year's win total already is our experience. Last year's team only returned three starters from the 2017 team, and only one pitcher. As a result, most of the boys just got thrown into the fire and had to learn how to compete at the varsity level on the fly. 

"This year's team, while still young (only three seniors), has much more experience.  We returned eight starters from last year, and four of our top five pitchers from last season's team (we only graduated three guys from last year's team). Now that they have all gone through a full varsity season, they have a much better understanding of what it takes to compete at the varsity level. Another big factor is the familiarity amongst themselves. Having a big portion of last year's roster back on the team this year has allowed the boys to get to know each other, both on and off the field.  They are more comfortable with each other, and there is a much higher level of trust between them as teammates. Nobody feels like they have to carry the team all by themselves anymore. If one guy doesn't get the job done, there is a lot of confidence that the next man up will pick up the team and get the job done.

"We are, by no means, a finished project, but we are light years ahead of where we were at this time last season. If we can continue to grow and develop as a team, there is no telling where this team can finish this year."