“We’re going to be real young.”
Every once in a while in a baseball coach’s career, these words have to pass over his lips at the start of a season. This is the season for Dave Guetlin to speak those words.
Coaching the South Whidbey High School team for his third year, Guetlin is in charge of a team that shed eight varsity players due to graduation last year. With just four senior varsity returnees on the field during this week’s pre-season workouts, the Falcons are a team that is remaking itself.
It’s not a bad time to do it. Though the 2002 Falcons broke the school’s win streak record by winning eight straight during the first half of the season, they finished the spring 9-9 and were knocked out of district playoffs in two games. With that in mind, coach and team are putting a huge bubble of sophomores onto the field along with just 10 upperclassmen between the varsity and junior varsity squads in hopes of being in the running by season’s end.
In the running means making the playoffs, so the Falcons need to bump off at least three North Cascade Conference teams along the way. Guetlin said this week that this team can.
“If the kids play with confidence, they can make top six,” he said.
Leading the team in 2003 are seniors Michael Berry, Brandon Cobb, Bryan Wenker and Josh Coleman. The quartet said the team lost some key players, including pitching ace Ben Schultz, but has the defensive ability to stay in games this season.
“It may not look like we have an older, seasoned team, but we have a lot of talent,” Berry said.
That talent include Wenker, who will likely be the pitching ace this year, and his understudy, sophomore Stephen Kolbo. Taking over for Chris Hahn as catcher will be junior Eric Flister, who got experience filling in for Hahn in the playoffs last season.
Guetlin said he believes his team will be able to play as well as any team in the NCC, but will have its toughest tests against Blaine, Lynden Christian and Nooksack Valley.
Coach and players say teamwork and hitting will be key to success this year. So too, said senior Coleman, will be support from the team’s fans.
“Come watch us play,” he said Thursday. “It’ll be exciting.”
The Falcons open their home season March 25 against Mount Baker.
