Baseball: Despite mediocre season outcome, team has high hopes for next year

Ending their season with a 12-19 record, the Falcons were disappointed with their performance overall.

“Our record will be better next year,” sophomore outfielder Kyle Dozier said.

The Falcons had a shaky start early on, but gradually improved as the season progressed. However, despite their efforts, they could not pull off enough victories to qualify for CCS. The Falcons lost their final two De Anza division playoff games 9-0 and 8-0, both against Los Gatos,
on May 10 and 12.

“We could have done a lot better, because we have the talent,” junior pitcher Brady Horn said,
“but we didn’t utilize everything we had to win the games that we needed to.”

This season the Falcons were led by four seniors: Pitcher Dillan Pak, who led the team in pitching with a 2.21 earned run average, pitcher Yoonbin Kim, outfielder Kevin Darchuk and first baseman James Reed all played major roles on this year’s team. With the loss of these key players, next year’s team will be completely different.

“We have a young team, so once they develop, the next couple of years they’ll be a really solid team,” Kim said.

The Falcons will be prepared for next season, even with the holes in their lineup and rotation left by the departing seniors. Younger players have been getting more experience and improving throughout the season.

Seven out of the nine players in the current starting lineup will return next year. Junior pitchers Brady Horn (who led the team in hits with a .456 batting average) and Will Dennis, sophomores Stevie Berman (catcher), Stephen Ruff (left fielder) and Kyle Dozier (outfielder) and freshmen Thomas Alexander (second base) and Davis Berryhill (right fielder) played in the starting lineup this season.

With the addition of a new head coach Adam Varteressian, players had to take time to get accustomed the the new regime. Next year, with a majority of the team already experienced with the coaches’ expectations, the team will make fewer mistakes and get organized earlier.

“Getting used to the coaches this year was hard,” freshman catcher Derek Sun said. “They were really different from what I was used to.”

Even with the loss of their most experienced players, next year’s team is expected to yield better results than this season. With so many returning players, all more accustomed to the coaching style, the Falcons hope to complete next season with a more impressive record.

“With the experience that we gained this season, we’ll do a lot better next year and and hopefully finish a lot higher in the standings than we did this year,” Horn said.

Kim feels that with the vast amount of talent on the team, they have the potential to do very well in upcoming years.

“I’ve had a really good time the last four years, and I can’t wait to come back and see how these underclassmen developed over the next couple years,” Kim said. “I hope this program goes in a good direction.”