Transcript
Joining us on Coach's Corner, KWBG, get a chance to talk some Ogden baseball today. Scott Church joining us as the Bulldogs get a chance to host ACGC coming up tonight, Ogden on a nice little four game winning streak. And Scott, you got your guys nine and nine right now in the season six and six in the conference and kind of feels like deja vu all over again. It feels like you guys get to about mid June every year and things start to kind of heat up for you. Yeah, we're just trying to find our identity early in the season and getting these kids to believe. And we're starting to feel it right now. They're starting to be better at the plate. Our pitching is starting to come around and being really solid. And we're playing really good defense. So those are good tools to have when the game's on the line. And I'm just proud of the effort that they're giving us right now. And I believe that they're believing. And we want to be playing some really good baseball towards the end of June. And that's hopefully we can continue to do that. Well, the one thing that I think we always know about Ogden baseball coach is you always seem to have plenty of arms. You always seem to have, I don't know how you do it. If they just out of birth, they're just like, hey, I'm going to be a pitcher. And I'm always going to play second base for shortstop. I feel like you guys always have a pretty good abundance of arms. And once again, this summer led by Colson Carson, who looked like had just a spectacular night last night. Anytime you get double digit strikeouts and keep your pitch count to where he did at 75. Boy, coach, that makes it easy to jump on the bus and ride home, doesn't it? Yeah, that was fun to watch him deal last night. He did a really nice job. He was in control of that game. Even when we were down 1-0, he was still giving us a chance to come back in that game. And I was really proud of his effort. His command is really good right now. And when you don't walk guys and you're around the plate all night, that gives you a good chance to win ball games. And I've been really pleased with all of our pitching, not just Colson's, but all of our pitching. The guys go out there, and we're not having to go to the bullpen. And that's big, especially when you're playing four and five nights a week. We didn't have to burn it up in different pitchers. And our starters are going six and seven innings. That's really big. And then our guys that are stepping up on the mound are having a lot of confidence out there when they're throwing. And they're pitching well. They're pitching in front of the count. They're not behind the count. They're not walking guys. They're letting our defense play behind them. And they're just building confidence as they get on the mound. And I'm really pleased to work with you, Seth, right now. Well, you just mentioned something else that's made you successful too, Scott. And this has got to be maybe one of your best defensive teams. I was looking at stats coming in. And through 18 ball games, coach 20 errors on the air, which means you're just averaging maybe an error at night. Man, if you give your pitchers and you give your hitters a chance by not booting the baseball around, you're going to have a good opportunity. And it looks like you guys are doing that this summer. Yeah, they're playing really good defense. And I've been really, really happy with the way Trey Mitchell's playing at third base. He's been really, really solid at that hot corner. And he's playing really well. And CJ Jones at second base is playing well. And Berdette up the middle, that's a really good combination there. We get out of some innings with some double plays. Our outfield, moving Thomas Bursch from back out to left field. And then you have Tegan-Rizabeth in center. And Chris and PD in right. That's a nice combination to have out there. And just doing an excellent job defensively, giving ourselves a chance. And then what can I say about Hunter Mitchell's behind the plate? Moving him behind there, the last four or five innings games. Watching him develop behind there, his arm strength, has really, really helped our team become more well-rounded. And I'm excited to see if we can go down the stretch here, because we are playing our best baseball right now. Scott, are those tough conversations to have when you talk about moving kids from one spot that they've been at for a little while and letting Thomas know this? And we think we might have a better opportunity with you in left field. And we're going to move Hunter behind the plate. Are those tough conversations? Or was this one pretty decent? Thomas did a really good job for us at the beginning of the season. And I have a lot of confidence in Thomas behind the plate. But we also felt that it was a spot that we needed to fill in left field. And Thomas is really comfortable out there in left field. And so we just made a change. We just wanted to try some different things. We looked at Hunter behind the plate. We knew Hunter could catch, but I didn't know he could catch like this. And then really, he really pleased with his efforts and the things he's doing. And Thomas is taking it very well. And I think Thomas is fighting a little bit of injuries here and there. And I think that he understands. And I think he's accepted that role. And when Hunter's on the mound in our closing role, Thomas will come in behind the plate. So right now, yeah, we feel really good with Hunter behind the mound. And Thomas has done an excellent job out in left. And that's a good combination to have when you have two solid catchers that you can put behind there. Well, West Central Valley, it looks like, again, a real good conference when it comes to baseball. This is not a big surprise, I'm saying to you, Scott. But the reason I bring it up is we're starting to get through now the second time through. Now, we obviously had second time through with West Central Valley last night. Got a big victory there. We're going to see Van Meter for the first time, ACGC, second time through. Matter it's going to be coming up. I mean, this is where we start saying, OK, let's see where we've improved or what's changed the first time. Is this exciting, or has this made coaches kind of scratch the head a little bit? No, it's very exciting time, right? Yeah, you want to see if your team is growing, right? You want to see if your team's going in that direction coming in the post tournament play. And I feel we are right now, right? And we're playing some really good baseball. They're not getting their heads down. They're fighting through some adversity sometimes. And they're finding ways to come out on top. And that's what you love out of these kids. Just see how they grow from the beginning of the season to see where we're at, kind of three quarters of the way through the season. And hopefully, we keep that momentum going. We got some tough competition. Our schedule is always tough. But that makes us a better ball team. And these kids are competing right now. And that's all you can ask for them. And we're improving game by game. And we keep doing that. We keep building confidence. I can't wait to get in the post season. But we've got to take care of some conference teams first. And we're excited to go down to, you know, we've got to take care of ACGC tonight, and hopefully. And, you know, we're excited to go down to band meet and see what happens down there. That's really going to test us, right? Band meet is a good baseball team. And we're going to really see if we've really taken that next step when we go down there Thursday night. Scott, as always, thank you so much for some time. We'll see you tonight for ACGC. All right, I appreciate it, Ryan. Thank you. You bet. Scott Churchigan joining us, Ogden Baseball, here on Coaches Corner.
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