Coaches Corner for July 1st: Bryce Dean, Madrid Baseball

Joining us, Coach's Corner, KWBG. Gonna talk some matter to baseball today. Bryce Dean joining us as the Tigers getting ready for postseason, and I kind of visited with Bryce a little bit off air and said hey, did you think about maybe playing tonight, then, you know, off Thursday play Friday? And Coach, you said no, we're good. We're ready to, we're ready to kind of get maybe some basics of practice tonight, and maybe kind of the same on Thursday. This schedule's good for you, right? Yeah, I really like where the schedule lands for us where we end on a Tuesday, and then with the Heat Index this week, and, you know, the legs are getting heavy as we played six games last week, and we've already played three games this week, and then we played two on Saturdays. We've never had back-to-back days off in a while, and it'll be good. You know, McCoy's caught every single game, except for two this year, and his legs let me to, uh, a very, very well-needed break for his legs, and I'll just get everybody crashed, and ready to go for Friday. Well, we're going to go backward here, because we haven't had a chance to talk to you, Bryce, yet, since the, uh, since the brackets came out, so when you first looked at the bracket and saw who your opponent was, and then find out you're going to be on the road, give me thoughts that when you kind of maybe looked at the bracket even a little bit closer than after. Yeah, I think initially, uh, we're pretty familiar with Collins-Maxwell. We've been going to them before the season. Um, uh, you know, hearing some birdies here and there, though, uh, a couple kids who may or may not be available for them, but, uh, we're going into Friday, planning on seeing the Weirston kids throwing against us. Um, he's a really, really good pitcher. Uh, probably, I would say probably one of the top who may be the best pitcher in our class. Um, when it comes to his stuff and his command, uh, and there you go as he goes, so if he's on, um, we'll just scratch and claw for every run we can get, but, uh, I'm confident in our stuff with, um, going into that game on Friday, and then, uh, you know, like our draw with Ankeny Christian, um, I haven't really looked too much into them yet, uh, but historically our matchups with them, uh, always seem to be within a run or two of each other, and, um, assuming that they don't have a new head coach from the past years, uh, I know the style of all they like to play, and they'll probably have one or two really good arms, they'll probably have three or four really good bats, and they'll be very, very sound defensively. Like I told the kids at practice, um, on Sunday evening, uh, go get the first one, go get the second one, district championship, anything can happen, so we like where we're at, um, we like our road, and, uh, we're really confident with the group of kids that we have, um, in everybody right now. Well, and you talked about the heat index and how, uh, Mother Nature's kind of messing with us a little bit. You had kind of a tough week if you look at it now. I know we're sitting here just on Wednesday, you're saying, when, how is it that difficult of a week? Well, you have a real good ACGC team on Monday that you're able to, you know, get a bunch of runs early and then kind of hang on, and then obviously you took on, I don't even know what to call them. I know we used to call Van Meter the juggernaut, maybe we call Pleasantville the same dang thing because they are just a force in two-way, and you're going to hear that, uh, that team a lot here in the next couple of weeks for sure, and you had them and that double header from yesterday, so Bryce really, even though we're only, you know, halfway through the week, you guys are busy on the field. Yeah, it was good to start off the week. Um, with a good win over ACGC, I have a lot of respect for Nick, uh, and his staff in the program that they filled. They're, they're scrapping, they're tough out, and I, I wouldn't be shocked to see them, um, win their first round game and then give Coon Rapids, uh, a little bit of money, uh, in that second round game. Um, and then you turned to Pleasantville and the same thing that I said for Nick and ACGC, all their stuff in the world for Luke in that program, but he's got down there at Pleasantville. They do everything so well, and you can tell, um, with the confidence that his kids carry every single pitch, and, um, I think, the bright side of playing a team that good, uh, right for playoffs is we probably won't see a team that good again until at least the sub-state finals, uh, if we were to get there against Finanser, so that, um, yeah, I, I think it's safe to say that the, the juggernaut of the league, they finished 20, you know, in the conference this year, and, but we, uh, we were one out of the way from playing a full seven innings with them last night, and that was, uh, uh, something I'm not, I don't like to do a lot of, uh, moral victories, um, but that was playing almost, playing six innings with them as more than a lot of teams played, uh, this year. Pitching through well, uh, every single kid on the varsity roster played last night, um, and yeah, it was, it was a fun, uh, fun, fun two days a third of the week so far, looking forward to Friday. I know you mentioned, Cooley, just a little bit ago about, uh, how this kid's been very, very busy, uh, this past summer for you, and I know you wouldn't have it any other way. I actually wanted to talk about him this week, not just from what he does for you defensively, but boy, he really seems like, uh, swinging the bat well here the last couple of weeks, and, and, uh, I don't need a ton of RBI's. I like to spread my RBI's around when it comes to high school, because I don't ever want situations where, oh, this guy's an RBI guy, keep an eye on him. I want everybody to be a guy that can, you know, square it up, but I really like the fact that, that Cooley's able to do multiple things for you, coach. He's done a nice job for you this season, and in his freshman, I use air quotes there season. Yeah, he's, uh, he's a bulldog. He's a warrior for us. Um, I don't remember the last time we had a freshman catch. I guess last year, Cooley caught a lot of games, but he didn't catch as many as McCoy had this year. Uh, and his maturity is, he's not a freshman. He's a second-year varsity player. He acts like Danny Carey himself like that, and batting was, uh, you know, last couple weeks, he put him in the lead-off spot. He gets on base a lot. Uh, I think he's, I don't suspect it, but he's on base for, he's got to be right around 500, whether it's walks. Uh, he broke the school record for hitting a single season on Saturday. Um, and he got a couple more after that. I think he's at 18 or 19 now. Um, but yeah, I can't say enough good things about this kid. Uh, don't really ever have to worry about him having a negative attitude. Uh, he's one of those kids that he literally shows up 30 minutes before everyone else supposed to be there. Uh, the last one to leave, sweep and dug out after gaining technical practices and uh, very, very excited that we get three more years with him for sure. Yeah, no doubt. Pitching staff wise, boy, I tell you what, I feel like this group is really starting to come into their own here the last week or so last 10 days. I've kind of been looking at the last six or seven games. I know you probably have an idea who you're going to start on Friday, which I know you're not going to tell me and I don't want you to, but I think it's a great situation to be in. Coach, I know in the past we've kind of known, all right, this is the dude. We're sending him out there and I don't have a problem with the fact that maybe we don't have that one superstar that we would throw out there because I feel like there's about three or four guys that are pretty darn good that I feel pretty confident with Friday night. Yeah, I would say we've probably got about four or five guys that were really, really confident and right now that it would be able to go out throw a lot of strikes um, and get up when we have them to. I mean, the obvious one to if anyone looks at our person down to Emerson's been our horse for three years, uh, Levi Cochlear, we talked about him a couple weeks ago, how much he's stepped up. Yeah. He's threw the ball a lot, well, really well last night against Pleasantville. Um, but then you get into the you know, Colby Owens has he's only got 10 and he's fifth this year. He's had some armed issues early in the year, but he's starting to come along. Zach Newell turned a corner recently. He's been, his strike percentage has been right around 65 to 68% when he started Connor Pettichord. He's not a fireballer, but he loves throwing his off speed for strikes and keeping hitters off balcony good lefty arm that um, depending on the situation of night to have and those are five guys that really, really committed this off season, but throwing a lot of strikes and it's uh, they're reaping benefits. Now if we head into the postseason. Well, let's talk about the postseason then. I know um, you're, you're somewhat familiar with Collins Max. Well, can you give us a scouting report? Bryce, did you guys get ready for Friday night with uh, postseason and Collins Maxwell at five o'clock? Yeah, um, already talked about the weird thing kid a little bit and they go as he goes, but um, and if they're listening, I uh, apologize by mispronouncing the name, but uh, Austin Bogey's a really good hitter. Um, I think number one thing on a scouting report would be keeping off the bases. If he gets on, uh, I'd compare him a lot to the, the older scram kid from ACPC. If he gets on, they're going to get runs. Okay. Um, and then after that um, I can't remember his name, but uh, their catcher um, it's a pretty good average um, but overall I'll, and I'll have more um, scouting of course we get through the week and stuff and I know that we close the book on the regular seasons, really, really dive into um, all the intricate details of their hitters, whether tendencies and contacting other coaches and getting information from other coaches and seeing what they like to do. Um, yeah, I think Weerson, uh, Bogey and the uh, again, I can't remember his last name, but their catcher is, those are their three, they'll beat you if you let them. Um, and if we let them get on base and run around a little bit, uh our season will be done Friday, but if our pitching staff and our defense shows up like they did on Monday night, then we'll have a date with either Mormon Trail or Ankeny Christian on Tuesday and that's kind of my, without diving into all the details um, a very, very uh, broad scouting report on them. Haha, Bryce, best of luck coming up on Friday night as always. Thanks for some time here on Coaches Corner. Thanks Ryan, I appreciate you. You bet. Bryce Dean again joining us. Matter of Baseball here on Coaches Corner.