Transcript
Joining us on coach's corner, KWBG. Going to talk some boon baseball today. Charlie Easton joins us, head coach. And actually, we're going to go backward because the last time we talked to coach, we hadn't quite had the pairings out yet. And so Charlie pairings are out. We know that, A, you get a home game on Friday night. That's always nice. And B, a team that you're kind of familiar with, not just because you played them earlier in the year, but because you and Claire Lake have played quite a bit here over the last five or six years. But that will be your opponent that comes to boon. I'm going to tell you that bus ride up to Claire Lake is not forever, but it can be a little bit of a haul. So I bet you're excited to just drive across town Friday night. Yeah, absolutely. Very excited to have another home game for a guest, Memorial Park. So don't mind road games and bus trips. But yeah, that is a long ride up to Claire Lake and pump that we're going to play this game at home on Friday. So the bracket was kind of interesting. And I'm not going to make you go through the entire bracket and tell me this and that and give me all the predictions and whatnot. But I guess what I thought about the bracket was interesting because there are some teams we've really never seen in the postseason that find their way in the bracket this year. Yeah, kind of interesting to get Xavier there at the one seed. And yeah, know nothing about them. Haven't played them to my knowledge. And I've kind of been around boon baseball for a while now. And yeah, so that's kind of an interesting one there. But I think there was a pretty big effort to kind of spread some things out a little bit more this year. And just speaking with a lot of the coaches within our conference, the big thing was no one wants to have another conference tournament. So we were fortunate not to be in that conference tournament a year ago, but a lot of our better teams in our conference were stuck in that one. And I think that they did a good job of spreading it out here this season. Charlie, I know nobody wants to drive across the state. Give me your thoughts, though, with spreading the love around a little bit, shall we say, where we don't have to see four or three teams in a sub state. Are you OK if it has to be a two hour trip if you're playing not a conference school in the final? Yeah, for me, it really doesn't matter. It's not like we've got to get up and go to school tomorrow morning. Right. Yeah, it doesn't matter to me if you got to travel to go play. You know, we had to travel to go play in the state tournament last year, and we had a great time traveling to Sioux City. So a little different deal, I get it. But yeah, to me, it's not a big deal if you got to travel. All right, let's talk about last week. And obviously, you had a couple of nice victories in there. It's always nice to end the week with a victory. So I know that felt good against Hampton Dumont. But tell me about the week last week, Charlie. At least the week last week, Charlie, what did you think? Yeah, senior night on Monday. Got a win over Des Moines Lincoln there. Got a chance to get all their seniors on the field and to play and to honor them and thank them for the years that they've contributed to the Boone Baseball team and program. And it was a good night for the guys there. Tough games against North Polk. Boy, they're playing really, really well right now. They got a chance to go on a big run here and maybe even win it again. Bond Rant-Farrar, a game that, you know, going into it, I thought we'd be more competitive. And just a tough night for us there against Bond Rant-Farrar. And they're a good team, you know, credit to them as well. But to finish the week, what they, just a commanding win, I guess you could say, against Hampton Dumont, was good heading into a longer weekend. You know, we take Friday off, take Saturday off, and have a good practice last night to be sharp and ready to go here to, you know, start our district player this week. Winners said, obviously, last conference game of the season. So I know conference games are always important to you guys, just wanting to, I mean, you're competing in the Rock and River Conference, you obviously want to get wins. This would be a big win tonight to get that last conference win before you head into Nevada and then, as you talk about postseason. Yeah, we definitely want to finish strong here in our conference and, you know, finish as good as we can. And so, important game for us here tonight against Winner said, you know, with that said, we also got to get our pitchers tuned up and ready to roll for the rest of the week. So we'll be throwing a number of different arms at Winner's set here tonight to get our guys out there on the bump and to throw competitive innings and just to be sharp and ready to roll here for Friday. I was going to ask you, Charlie, I know that's been kind of the MO in the past is, OK, listen, we're going to throw a bunch of guys tonight. I'm guessing maybe that will be the case on Wednesday against Nevada. Do you guys sit down then as a staff before Nevada, or is it after Nevada to kind of figure out what you want to do with your rotation? Before, like really, at the end of the week, last week, you know, it's like, OK, so how do we got to turn guys around here to make sure that we're lined up for Friday? And, you know, you almost start thinking about that week six and seven during the regular season. How do we get our schedule on track to, you know, throw who we want to throw on the Friday night game, win the Friday night game, to throw the Monday night game, win the Monday night game, to throw in a sub-state final? Like, you do start, you know, start thinking about that around week six and week seven, right? Who is the Friday night guy? Who's the Monday guy? Who's the Wednesday guy? And it's important to plan things out. You got to kind of have a little bit of an outlook on it that way, just to make sure that you're timing things up as far as, you know, who's on the bump and working the next night. Charlie, everybody loves to see the batting averages in the 370s or 380s. I've always said, because Boone plays in the Raccoon River Conference and you see some of the best pitching in the state, in my opinion. And I'll fight anybody that wants to go down that road. I really think you got some amazing pitching in this group. I've looked at almost four to five kids right around that 300 mark. Is this hitting coming around? Is this a spot now where all of a sudden we feel really good about maybe over half this lineup to get into postseason? And let's see what happens. Yeah. I'd like to think that we're getting a little bit more comfortable there at the plate and having some confidence, right? But, you know, those guys at the top of that order right there, that you're listening off as far as those batting average goes, that comes with a lot of work that they've put in outside of what we do as a baseball team. And that's credit to those guys and what they do. As far as Noah Davies, Levi Bay, and Tice Carlson, those guys have the bat in their hands a lot. They are swinging it throughout the winter. And so for those guys to be performing that well against the competition that we compete against, it's credit to them and what they're doing outside of our season. Charlie, there's one more stat I wanted to talk about this week and that's on base percentage. I feel like we look at averages and I just did it right there because I talked about averages and whatnot. But I always feel like on base percentage is kind of underrated. You guys are at 409 right now. To me, that's a pretty solid on base percentage. You guys are finding ways, if it's not a hit, you're getting on base. Yeah. Well, that's something that we do talk a lot about our guys with, you know, get on base anyway you can, right? And, you know, if that means toes are up on the line and we've got to get hit by pitches, and that's what it means. And, you know, that's just tough baseball when you get hit by pitches. So we need to get on base anyway we can, you know, try to hit a line drive. We don't hit a line drive. Let's hit the ball hard in the ground. Let's get a hard 90. Let's beat it out. Let's force an air. You know, the goal of the game is to touch home plate more times than the opposing team. And so you do that by getting on base and creating pressure that way. And, you know, whether that's stealing a bag or whether that's laying down a bunt, again, making the opposing team feel that throw it, catch it so that we can score as many runs as possible is the name of the game. So, you know, one thing that we like to look at is similar to the on base percentages, our hits, plus our walks, plus our hit by pitches, minus our strikeouts, like where are we at that way? And, you know, that's one way that you can go through and kind of build a batting order, or at least decide who's going to be, you know, in the lineup hitting that night is by looking at those things right there, not just simply batting average, but hits, plus walks, plus hit by pitches, minus strikeouts. That's good stats. It's good stats for sure. Charlie, best of luck tonight against Winters, set in Nevada, and obviously Clear Lake on Friday. We'll talk to you again next Monday. All right, sounds great. Thank you, Ryan. You bet. Charlie Eason again joining us. Boone Baseball here on Coaches Corner.
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