Quietly, the Jaguars raked the dirt around home plate, covered the dusty mound and rounded up stray balls following their final home game of the season, a 5-3 loss to San Diego Mesa College. Chatter was soft and morale low, as it has been for much of Southwestern College’s frustrating baseball season.
A loss on home turf was one of three in the series against Mesa, leaving them with a 11-13 conference record and 15-21 overall.
“It was very disappointing,” said head coach Jay Martel. “This is probably the worst record ever in the history of Southwestern College.”
Martel shouldered the blame.
“It starts at the top,” he said. “It starts with the coaches. Maybe we didn’t prepare them the right way. Maybe we didn’t have the right players in the right spots. Maybe it was bad luck. But from the beginning we haven’t been able to put all three things together, pitching, hitting and defense.”
A final loss at Mesa, 14-3, was a disappointing way to finish the year, said sophomore shortstop Steven Sherwood.
“It was a grind,” he said. “We had higher hopes for the season and they weren’t met, but that’s baseball, I guess. We have down seasons and up seasons.”
Jaguar winning streaks were short. They won only five of their last 15 games.
Freshman first baseman Luke Ramirez said it was a perplexing season for a team that seemed to have everything going for it.
“I feel like it was kind of out of our control,” he said. “It wasn’t that we didn’t work hard enough at practice. It wasn’t that our coaches didn’t push us. All of those pieces were there.”
Talent was most certainly there, but timing was not, said freshman outfielder Nicholas Alcoser.
“I thought we were going to do better than we did,” he said. “Honestly, I think our record didn’t reflect our talent. We had a lot of stuff, it just didn’t happen all at once.”
That talent included sophomore Codie Simmons, who had the fifth best batting average in the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference, .383, and third most stolen bases, 11. He finished with 54 hits, 27 runs, 11 doubles, three triples and a homer.
Simmons, one of just eight sophomores on the roster this season, said the year has been a good one, despite the record. His freshman teammates, he said, have a bright future at The Junction.
“I think they need to learn how to win and how to bring that competitive spirit into the game,” he said. “I think they’re just young right now, but they’ll get it. They’re due for a big comeback next year.”
Martel said his priority is to recruit arms.
“We have got to find pitching,” he said. “Pitching will shut down most good teams. We need guys who can pound the zone and want to compete. And from there we need to find a little more heart, dig a little deeper.”
Freshman pitcher Brandon Teichman said the staff was under a lot of pressure this season.
“There were times when I pitched whengames were close and I didn’t do as well,” he said. “When I gave up a run it felt like I lost those games for us.”
Teichman, who was one of six conference pitchers with a sub-3 ERA and more than five wins, said the Jaguars pitchers gave their best.
“I believe we handled it pretty well,” he said. “The pitching staff, they did their jobs. Everybody’s young, it’s a learning experience.”
Watching the sophomore pitchers enriched that experience, said Teichman.
“One of the sophomore pitchers, Kyle Bedsole, helped me out,” he said. “I saw him go out onto the mound and dominate every time. That gave me an attitude that each game is mine and I want to win.”
Next year’s sophomores are preparing to step into the leadership roles that await them, said Alcoser.
“I feel like I could play that role, but I want other people to play that role too,” he said. “I think next year is going to be different because we have something to prove.”
Early transfers and the MLB draft could siphon off some of the best frosh.
“Everyone who shows up, they have aspirations to play at the next level, but as far as ultimate goals, they are like me knowing that every game could be their last,” said Ramirez, who has plans to transfer to CSU Long Beach in the fall. “They might have bigger goals up ahead, but I don’t think that takes away from their work effort or their performance at junior college.”
Star of the Chula Vista Blue Bombers 2009 Little League Champs, Ramirez said he is selling his glove and saying goodbye to the game, but that he has no regrets about his time in baseball.
“(CSU Long Beach) just sounds more and more exciting to me every day and I’m looking forward to going up there and being a student,” he said. “As a player, I can always look back and say there’s always so much more I could have done better. But looking at the amount of fun I had this season, it’s okay. It was still worth it, just playing the season and being with this group of guys.”
