By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
STAYTON, Ore.– After a 1-4 start to the season, the Regis Baseball team has been on a tear going into the 2A/1A Special District 2 League Playoffs on Thursday.
The Rams. Since that start, they have won 18 of their last 20 games, sitting second in the league standings, all with a relatively young team.
The roster features eight underclassmen with the likes of the Lulay brothers and Hudson Mumey to go with eight upperclassmen that features Korben Schumacher, Owen Eaton and Rook Smith.
Smith, one of three seniors on the roster with Lucas Koehnke and Trayton Hume, knows how important it is for the three of them to leave their marks on the program during this last ride in a Regis uniform.
“It’s really been big in my life and been pretty impactful in my sports career,” starts Smith. “We needed to step up big time for the younger guys and get them involved with the program more and get them the minutes and the time to get better to improve. It’s nine guys that need to get the job done and with the underclassmen stepping up it’s been huge.
“Especially with Hudson (Mumey), Hayden and Hunter (Lulay) as well, stepping up big time for us and Holden, those Lulay Boys, they’re stepping up big this year and just trying to be a role model for them.”
And those underclassmen, like Mumey, have stepped up as they went back to practice on Tuesday. Finishing second in league during the regular season, the Rams had a ‘bye’ Tuesday as Culver, Santiam and Monroe/Alsea battled to get to Thursday’s League Championship day at Crosshill Christian.
“It’s fun to play because we have a really small community, so we know each other really well. We all have really good communication together and it’s fun to learn from the older kids. They pass it on really well and we really get to know each other.,” said Mumey. “They’re really showing us how to lead, how to lead the field, hit the bat. It’s important that we pass it on to the younger kids that are getting into High School.”
Monroe/Alsea defeated Santiam to get to Thursday’s Championship Day game’s. The Rams and Dragons will play at 2pm, winner plays the Eagles right after for the League Championship.
The weakness for the Rams to this point has been their slow starts. With them playing a traditionally strong 2A/1A squad in Monroe/Alsea for the fourth time this season, they know they’ll need to come out strongly if they want to have a chance to get to that League Title game later on Thursday.
“I think we just need to improve on our bats, especially early in the games. We don’t really come firing out right away until the third/fourth inning. So getting runs across the first few innings is definitely huge, keeping up our energy up is huge too,” said Smith.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
