Friday, Jun. 13, 2008
'That’s Baseball’
The Lonnquist Notes
As the baseball team brought its skewed record into the Class 5A state playoffs, the players knew they were better, and so did their opponents. Carroll forfeited 11 wins earlier in the season because it accidentally used an ineligible player.
Still, if you were an outsider and picked up the paper for the first time and saw Carroll’s .500 record, you would have concluded that there was no way the Dragons would get through.
But they did. Down went Hebron. Down went Arlington Martin. Down went Coppell. Down went Amarillo. Down went Flower Mound. Down went Houston Bellaire.
In fact, the Dragons wound up being the second-best program in the state of Texas. They lost a slugfest to Plano West in the championship game, 10-8. They finished 23-19 but were 11-2 in the postseason.
"At the beginng of the season, our goal was to win district and get to Round Rock," senior right-hander Ross Stripling said. "I’m sure most of us didn’t think it was realistic. We actually considered ourselves a bunch of nobodies. But as we kept going in the playoffs, we realized that we could hang with anybody."
Had Carroll’s record been kept in tact, the Dragons would have finished 34-8. But then again, maybe the adversity doesn’t solidify this team and it doesn’t get to 34-8 and play in the state championship game.
Any long playoff journey will tell a story. The Carroll story was one of near perfection. The Dragons played in best-of-three formats for the first five rounds and lost only one game. Amarillo took them to three games in the regional semifinals.
"I was just impressed with the way we handled everything all the way," Carroll coach Larry Hughes said. "The real issue is how the leadership of your team leads. The other key is how the younger and more inexperienced players will react to your leaders. And they did. There was just really good chemistry."
Beating a variety of great teams in Arlington Martin, Coppell, Flower Mound and Bellaire showed that. In fact, they kept pushing Plano West, a team they thought they had defeated in early March before the forced forfeit.
Carroll fell behind 3-0, rallied to take a 7-5 lead, then fell behind 10-8 and had a chance in the sixth inning before running out of responses in the state championship game.
For a team to grind from January to early June and come up a game short underscores how difficult it is to win a high school baseball state championship. In fact, I would argue the high school baseball championship is the toughest of them all. It became tougher when the fourth playoff team was added and the bye was eliminated.
A team must win five rounds and play several, if not exclusively, best-of-three series just to get to the state tournament. Depth and talent are a must to have.
"You get to a point where you have seen all of the curveballs and all of the change-ups," Hughes said. "Now, you have to see how the momentum treats you. We had a couple of chances that didn’t go our way. But that’s baseball."
It would be easy to think that the program is good enough to return to the state tournament so it can win it in 2009. That may be true, but there certainly is no guarantee. Carroll may be back next year. Hughes may be retired by the time the Dragons return. You just never know.
For the time being, it is best to appreciate what they did.
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