The Indian baseball team will have a scrimmage today in Levelland.
“We have been practicing, and I think we are more team oriented this year,” junior infielder Alan Mireles Madrid said. “We have tough teams in the way, but if we play as a team we have a chance to go to state again.”
The team graduated multiple positions last year, leaving gaps to fill.
“Losing the seniors has made us work harder to get back to state like we did last year,” junior outfielder Jaycen Robledo said. “It’s given other people opportunities to show what they are made of and their talent this year.”
The Indians made a historic run at state last year and are hoping to keep up the momentum to earn a trophy.
“The key to making a deep play-off run is to have a day by day approach and not get too far ahead of ourselves,” Coach Chris Gonzales said. “We have a tough district and play-ff road ahead of us, but our goal will be to focus on one game at a time and play to win the inning. Everyone will be coming for us with their best; we just have to play our game and trust the process.”
The Indians are working on their offense as well as preparing the underclassmen.
“Our offensive abilities are what we need to work on because that was our main struggle last year,” senior pitcher Eloy Maccias said. “We also need to give the underclassmen more experience for when we graduate.”
Older players have stepped into new positions.
“We are having different people filling the roles that once felt like big roles,” Robledo said. “We have to keep our mentality up and play competitively all season.”
The Indians are hoping to keep up the trend they started last year.
“Team strengths are the returning number of starters and their competitive drive to build off of last year’s success,” Gonzales said. “Pitching will also be a strength. I believe that we have always had great depth in pitching and that definitely makes it easier to start and get through the season.”
The Indians’ season opener will be Feb. 16 hosting New Home.
