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| B. Scott
Anderson Sports Blog |
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Tigers still seeking answers |
By B. Scott
Anderson, Newberg Graphic sports editor
E-mail Scott at banderson@eaglenewspapers.com
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Occasionally, the Abby’s
AAA American Legion baseball team has demonstrated it can stand up
to its competition. Other times, including Wednesday’s game against
McMinnville, the team has failed to meet the challenge.
The Tigers scored three runs in the bottom of the seventh inning,
but it was too little too late. McMinnville had already assumed a
12-1 lead and completed a 12-4 victory over the Tigers.
Abby’s coach Frank Baumholtz said the reason for the loss was his
players’ lack of confidence.
“That’s the thing we’re struggling with — confidence,” he said. “We
have five sophomores playing and they’re getting a lot of varsity
experience that they haven’t had in the past.”
Nick Reynolds, who saw no playing time for the Newberg High School
varsity team this past season, had three hits in the game, including
a two-RBI double in the seventh.
Gaining confidence for players like Reynolds is critical for the
success of Abby’s, Baumholtz said.
“He’s a kid who will potentially have big opportunities for us,”
Baumholtz said. “He had a great day today, but he probably doesn’t
realize it. It won’t be until he gets that confidence that he
realizes it.”
Baumholtz said he wants his players to play with confidence and
touted Pac-9 Conference first team center fielder Todd Siler as an
example. Siler had three infield singles Wednesday.
“He plays with confidence and we want guys to get that,” Baumholtz
said. “We want guys to have the ability to have some success and
play with confidence.”
Particularly frustrating for the team was that it left eight
runners stranded; Abby’s yielded no runs when it had the bases
loaded in the second inning. Baumholtz said situations like that are
impacted by a team’s lack of confidence.
“You’ve got runners on first and second or second and third, and
you’ll have a guy up there who starts questioning himself a little
bit, and that’s the piece that we need to fix,” he said.
Abby’s will play a 3 p.m. doubleheader Sunday at home against
Forest Grove before getting into the heart of the its schedule.
Because of scheduling conflicts, Abby’s was forced to move games
around and schedule them for later. That resulted in time off
through the end of the regular season, which ends July 13.
“We’re going to play a ton,” Baumholtz said. “I think we play
something like 28 games in the next 30 days.”
So much baseball is good for his club, he added.
“Guys are going to get a lot of chances to play a lot of baseball
and that’s what summer is about — getting guys a lot of
opportunities to play and get better,” he said. “But they all want
to play and play a lot.”
Baumholtz said he does have concerns about player burnout.
“We’ve got guys who are doing a lot of other stuff like
basketball and football and stuff like that,” he said. “We give them
the freedom that if they’ve got stuff going, they have the freedom
to do that.” |
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From
June 18, 2005, Newberg Graphic
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