CL Baseball: “Very Frustrating”

The Canyon Lake Hawks have been in a funk the past few weeks and now is the time to draw the line in the sand.

You remember the scene in The Alamo, when Colonel Travis drew a line in the sand to find out who would stay and fight.

The Hawks have found themselves at the end of the season grasping for something to tide them over as they wait for reinforcements.

Coach Trent Dunavant has been bringing players in from the freshman team the past few games just to make sure he has enough players if someone gets hurt.

Just last week Sophomore Kyler Huff was finishing a promising campaign when a pitched ball caught him on the jaw causing him to drink from a straw for the remainder of the season.

The year was not suppose to end this way after a promising end of the year in the playoffs in 2010. The replacement for Huff? A freshman….

Notice that the the two players we are talking about on any given team would be Junior Varsity, but the Hawks have five starters that are Sophomores.

Put this team against other Junior Varsity clubs and the scores would not be even close….but put them against a team composed of Junior and Seniors and sustained success is usually not the result.

“Our team tonight was batting against a good senior pitcher,” Coach Dunavant said. The Hawks were playing Navarro, a team they beat earlier in the year.

The Hawks found themselves without much hope in the game as the coaches look at a bench and see everyone in uniform is playing.

“We can’t do substitutions in the games,” Dunavant continued. “If I have a pitcher in the game, I don’t have many choices if I need to make a change.”

“This is very frustrating,” Kyler Huff said with mouth closed. “I felt good as the season was progressing….from the first of the year to when I was hit, I was getting much more relaxed.”

Huff hit his first two homeruns this season, “It felt good after hitting the homeruns, I was smiling the whole time I ran around the bases.”

Smiling is about the only thing Kyler can do right now, well that and eating through a straw.

The team is young and have played a lot of 5A and 4A schools. The record does not show it, but the team can not be taken lightly by opponents next year.

The resolve of the team will be an attitude of finishing. Next season the Hawks will hopefully get some players back in the dugout and ready to get to the playoffs again.

“We are going to come back with more fight,” Huff concluded. “We will be playing for each other!”

I think their will be at least ten players that cross that line in the sand when next year comes around. I hope Santa Anna does not take them for granted.