With two games left in the baseball regular season, the 28-4A district title is still up for grabs but the good news for the Greyhounds is that they control their own destiny.
The Greyhounds plays Wimberley twice this week and if Boerne wins both, they’ll take the district crown.
Boerne has one district loss and so does Wimberley, both to Canyon Lake, while the Hawks have two losses after they split with the Greyhounds and Wimberley.
Depending on what happens this week, the Greyhounds could finish anywhere from first to third or even in a three-way tie for first, but two wins against the Texans and they’re district champs.
What’s made it hard on Boerne is that they lost two starters. They’re without fireballer Cole Phillips and outfielder Riley Pechacek.
Phillips hit 101 miles per hour on his pitches this year and Pechacek was one of the team’s better allaround athletes and while they’ve been tough to replace defensively, the coach said they miss their sticks just as much.
“When you lose your No. 4 and 5 hitters, that pretty tough,” Coach Bill Merrell said. “We made some adjustments and changed our line up.”
A look at the district
The teams in District 28-4A play each other twice in a week. In most districts, each team plays all the others once in the first round and then faces them a few weeks later in the second round.
Merrell said it’s more competitive this way because of the way the pitching rotations work.
“In the other way, you could see everybody’s No. 1 every time you played them and you’d never see their No. 2 pitcher,” he said. “You could set the rotation to where you’ll never see the No. 2 pitcher, so this way is little fairer.”
In other words, if a team’s No. 1 pitcher throws on Tuesday, he likely wouldn’t be able to pitch again on Friday against the same team, so the way District 28-4A does it really reveals a team’s pitching depth.
The Greyhounds have swept Bandera, Davenport and Fredericksburg and split with Canyon Lake. Their lone district loss to the Hawks came by a single run.
A look at the team
On this year’s roster is Max Garcia, Connor Shill, Landon Lestourgeon, Riley Pechacek, Hutson Hendrix, Jake Wright, Gabe Herrera, Jaxon Baize, Ryan Hooper, Davis Amerman, Brooks Perez, Cam Johnson, Xander Cloudy, Cole Phillips, Kalob Sanchez, Cale Blalock, Dylan Perez, Rashawn Galloway, Tyler Garritano, Cager Van Stavern and Andrew Poole.
Merrell said his team has a lot of pitching depth and it’s helped after they lost Phillips.
“We have four or five guys that can pitch that we’re comfortable putting on the mound at any time,” he said. “Andrew Poole, Xander Cloudy, Kalob Sanchez, Tyler Garritano and Landon Lestourgeon can all throw, we have good pitching this year.”
Merrell said one of the strengths of the team is their chemistry.
“I think the biggest thing is that the kids like each other, there’s no jealousy or envy, there’s none of that,” he said. “It’s all about the success of the team, our team chemistry is the biggest thing we’ve got going for us. It seems to be that all our parents like each other too, we have everybody supporting everybody.”
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