Young Cougar baseball team ready to take next step

Youth is being served for the Cascade Christian High baseball team.

Cascade Christian (2-3) is facing a big season for the program, as the team is built around a strong junior core ready to improve on its Class 1A quarterfinal appearance a year ago.

“First of all, we represent God,” Chad Adams said of the team’s strong ties to faith and baseball. “But as a team, we’re really young and we only have one senior. But we’re just working really hard with the time off.”

The time off has already created an imbalance in Cascade Christian’s scheduling.

Early rain and an extended spring break has caused an irregular schedule so far for the Cougars as they entered the week with an 0-2 Nisqually League record in limited action. The Cougars current sit in third behind league-leading Vashon (7-1, 7-0 league) and second-place Seattle Christian (5-3, 2-1).

With Vashon’s quick jump on the league, Cascade Christian feels it’s still going to be a fight for the league title.

“When we’re losing like we did (on Saturday), we have to keep playing hard,” Michael Messer said. “Baseball is a mind game (and) if you play hard, when the game’s (within) one run, those are the games you’ll end up winning.”

You have to play hard and have faith in the guys beside you. That’s the goal.”

Having faith

With a smaller roster because of the break, Cascade Christian was unable to keep up with 1A defending state champion Hoquiam, 13-0, over five innings.

Despite the short-handed loss to the Grizzlies on Saturday afternoon, the Cougars aren’t making excuses going forward.

“We may have been missing some key pieces today, but we’ll bounce back,” Jack Hannah said. “We some key league games (this) week. We’ll come out strong against Charles Wright (on Tuesday).”

This week will be a big testament to the improvement of the program from a year ago.

With back-to-back gamedays, the Cougars will be able to build momentum as they travel to Charles Wright (2-4, 0-2) on Tuesday before splitting a crucial home-and-away series with Seattle Christian on Wednesday and Friday.

“These will be critical games for us this week. (Saturday) we had guys playing out of position and guys missing,” Messer said. “If we play together, I think we can take the fight to Vashon and Seattle Christian.”

This story was originally published April 12, 2016 at 12:16 PM with the headline "Young Cougar baseball team ready to take next step."