Coaches Corner for July 14th: Scott Church, Ogden Baseball

with us on coaches corner, KWBG. Gonna talk Ogden baseball today. Scott Church joining us. We're gonna talk postseason with the Bulldogs as Ogden went two and one in the postseason. This, well, boy, as fast as postseason goes, let's just put it that way the last couple of weeks. And Scott, you started it off with a victory against South Hamilton and one of those games that we really needed to see. Well, listen, we've seen it all season long when it comes to Colson Carson. I'm gonna bring up his name here in a little bit again, but he went out there and absolutely did what your number one pitcher's supposed to do. And you scratched out just enough against Garrett Johnson who threw really well for South Hamilton that night. Yeah, give Garrett Johnson a lot of credit on how you pitched that for South Hamilton. South Hamilton came in ready to play. You know, the record wasn't all that good going into it, but they also planned a very tough conference. And we knew going into that game that South Hamilton would be up for it. And we would have to play really, really good. And we did defensively, right? We played really good defensively and Colson was really, really good on the mound that night. And we did just enough. And Rizovic's RBI was big in the third there for us to take the lead two to one. And, you know, we just battled all night in that game. It was a fun district game. We just found a way to manufacture a couple of runs and relied on our defense and our pitching to get us through. And at that time, you know, it was surviving advance. And that's what we did in game one for sure. Scott, is that one of those games where the kids, when they go up to bat, they know, listen, we got to scratch out a couple of runs. We got to give Colson something. He's going to shut the other team down. Do they press a little bit when that happens? I don't know if they press a little bit, but yes, they definitely know that we've got to give Colson, you know, a little bit of a leeway there, right? You know, our goal for the year was always, you know, to score at least five runs, right? We felt with our pitching staff, especially with Colson on the mound, if we could give him five runs, we felt pretty comfortable that we could come out on top. But, you know, that was just one of those games that, you know, two-to-one game. And Colson's pitching a lot of those games. So he was just out there, right? He kept them off balance. His curve ball was working really well. And he spots guys. And the big thing about Colson is that he didn't walk guys. He had 11 walks total on the season. And I was really proud of him, how he competed all year. And I was proud of all of our players, how they competed all year. And he did some great things with that. But yeah, that first round game was a tough matchup. I'm glad we found a way to come out on top of that. Well, then you go in your second round game against an I-35 team who had kind of had your number. They had won the last, I think, four games in a row against you guys. And they come right out and score a run in the bottom of the first inning. But to your credit, Scott, you guys came back with three more in the top of the third inning. So you maybe blinked a little bit when I-35 scored first, but you guys weren't intimidated and looked like that night. Yeah, you've just seen the look in our kids' eyes that night against I-35. I think we played them top at home. We lost to them 2-0 in the second game of the double header. And Christian D threw a really good game in that. And I think the kids were fired up for the opportunity to play I-35 in that second game. And again, they were confident with Colson on the mound. And Colson was Colson that night. Colson threw a gym. Plus, we give him run support that night. We had some timely base hits. And we pulled out the old bag of tricks and had some timely squeeze plays. I know we had two of them that kind of flipped the script a little bit, especially we squeezed on two strikes. So we had to throw some different things at him a little bit to manufacture some runs. And we did. And I thought our kids did a really nice job at the plate. Our two strike approach was really, really good that night. And we just found ways to get on base and gave us a chance. And we gave Colson a chance. After we got the lead back in the fifth, sixth, five, Colson really, really settled down and started really dialing in and kept him really off balance. And once we got the lead off hitter out in the seventh, you just see the look in Colson's eyes that he was going to take care of business. And he did. And we played really, really good defense behind Colson, too. We made some plays. CJ was really, really good at second base. And Trayton Mitchell was really good at third base, also. And our off field covers a lot of ground, that balls that possibly could be in the gap. But we run them down very well. And so that was a total team effort. No doubt about it. Vita 935, and that's a solid baseball team. They were 23 and 9 for a reason. And they have really good pitching. So I was really, really happy with how we performed that night against I-35 and what a way for these seniors to win that game and give themselves an opportunity to at least play for a district championship. Well, and that's what was next then, obviously, with the trip to Roland's story and the number two ranked team in class 2A. And obviously, one of the better teams, not just in 2A, but you could probably say all of the classes here this summer. Scott, that was going to be a tough one going in. I know the defense was a little shaky that night as well. Pitching maybe didn't quite get as many strikes as you would like. But you knew going into that one, you don't have to play perfect. But man, you got to play pretty darn close. Yeah, Roland's story is a really, really good baseball team. They're probably going to be one of the favors to win the 2A championship. We had to be really, really good that night. And every aspect of it and Roland's story can just hit. They can just, they feel, they hit, they have pitching. They have all the tools and stuff that you need for to be a contender in the 2A C championship. And I was proud of our kids. Even the score looks the way it was. We just didn't play very good defensively. We ended up having, I think, nine errors on the night. And you just can't do that and beat a team of that caliber and move on. But our kids competed. They never gave up. And that's all I can ask out of them. And I'm really proud of this group. I really am. And I'm really proud of who they became and how they grew out through the season. And they made a nice run in the tournament. And they did a lot of good things this season. Yeah, they definitely did. Scott, we'll wrap up the season with you in a couple of weeks. Thanks for some time here on Coach's Corner today. I appreciate it, Ryan. Thank you. You bet. Scott Church again joining us. Ogden Baseball here on Coach's Corner.