Advosports

The baseball programs at Victoria East, Victoria West and St. Joseph have three similarities as the 2012 season approaches. Their individual success this spring might be determined on how each school handles those ties that bind.

Each won 20 games in 2011, awaits the arrival of a key contributor due to basketball commitments and underwent a preseason where the weather interrupted their preparation.

Wes Kolle, Manuel Alvarado and Mike Shimek are not using any of those explanations as excuses. If anything, the coaches at East, West and St. Joseph, respectively, said those experiences have allowed others to step up and earn playing time.

"This is their shot," Shimek said. "They need to relax and have some fun. It is baseball."

Shimek was specifically referring to his youthful team, but it could be applied to the two other teams as well.

St. Joseph went 21-9 and advanced to the playoffs for the 25th time in Shimek's career. The 2012 team has six seniors, but only returns 11 innings of varsity pitching experience from the team that advanced to the TAPPS Class 5A quarterfinals.

The Flyers plan to "pitch by committee" when they open their season at El Campo on Monday. In the first weeks of the season as many as a half dozen players will get a chance on the mound and earn a spot in the St. Joseph rotation.

"We need to throw strikes and make the plays behind our pitchers," Shimek said. "We also need to make all the routine plays and only give teams three outs, not four and five."

Jerry Vasquez, Jarret Ortmann and Stephen Boedeker are the returning starters with the most experience. However, Vasquez, like East outfielder Christian Herring and West pitcher Miles Manning has missed all of the preseason because they lead their basketball teams to the playoffs.

East was 20-17 and lost to perennial state power Calallen in the area round of the playoffs. When it comes to pitching the Titans are a 180-degree shift from the Flyers as Kolle has five arms he can trust.

Calhoun transfer John Garcia, Adrian Gonzalez, Cole Urban, sophomore Michael Garcia and Hunter Perkins will all vie for spots in Titans rotation this spring. An ace has yet to arise from that quintet, but Kolle is confident one will win that designation.

"It makes us a better team," Kolle said about the addition of John Garcia. "That's all we can worry about. We can't worry about any other team in our district. We just have to worry about the East Titans and us getting better each and every time.

"Having (Garcia) come over is a competition. He's making the guy, who was going to play better because if that guy wants to play he's going to have to beat out John. It's a completion within our own team for spots and hopefully, that will breed success in the long run."

West (21-9 in 2011) knows who its No. 1 pitcher will be. But, Manning is still playing basketball, so no one knows when the Sam Houston State-bound pitcher will take the hill for Alvarado.

Seniors Brooks Bynum, Mike Mikulenka and Seth Harrison are more than capable of pitching in Manning's absence.

When Harrison is not on the mound, he will be in center field. With a pair of new corner outfielders Alvarado wanted to utilize Harrison's speed in the outfield. The emergence of juniors A.J. Kuester and Corey Willemin at catcher, allowed Alvarado to move Harrison from behind the plate.

"They have come together pretty good. We have a blend of older guys and a mixture of younger guys from JV that weren't here last year," Alvarado said. "They are all coming together as a team and playing well together. The older guys are helping the younger guys that don't have varsity experience and there is a lot of communication out there during practice."

West wants to win the District 30-4A title outright and see how far it can advance in the playoffs. However, that will not come easily as East has the same goal. West beat East two of the three times they played, including a 10-0 victory in the district tiebreaker.

"We don't want to peak too soon," Kolle said. "We have a little phrase, 'The next game on the schedule is the biggest game of the year.' We're not looking ahead to West or any district game. The next game on the schedule is our biggest game of the year and that's our approach.

"We want to play one game, one inning, one pitch at a time. Hopefully at the end we'll have a chance."

At this stage of the season, that's all any of Victoria's baseball coaches can ask.

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