rapid fluoridate: Baseball: Bulldogs started playing right way at the right time

By Terry Jacoby
Heritage Media

The Bulldogs celebrate a regional title. Photo by Burrill Strong

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The Chelsea baseball team didn?t have a split personality and didn?t find magic in a bottle in the postseason.

They just started playing better baseball. Could it really be that simple?

?Early in the season, I would have to say we didn?t have a strong team chemistry,? said junior pitcher Logan Marable. ?We hadn?t developed that team bond yet that would come with time and from being around the guys every day. Coach (Adam) Taylor brought us all together and the team chemistry formed quickly.?

After struggling through the regular season in the tough Southeastern Conference, the Bulldogs won a district title and then won a regional title before falling in a state quarterfinal game at U-M.

?The guys just started to play the game the right way,? said Taylor, who took over the program from longtime coach Wayne Welton. ?A few guys may have overachieved a little but we certainly had the talent.?

Marable agreed that even the players knew they had the talent to beat quality teams.

?We always knew we had the potential,? he said. ?The gun was loaded so to speak. We had the guys and the talent to win, and in those games when we were behind, it was only because we weren?t doing the little things. With practice and hard work, we were able to get those little things down and play to our full potential.?

Ryan Koenn, one of several seniors who stepped up and took charge, said the change came when players started putting the team first.

?We still hadn?t figured out what it meant to be a team and how to pick guys up if they were struggling,? Koenn said. ?There was too much finger pointing when things started to turn sour and the selfishness put our team in a bad spot at times.

?If we had a bad inning it felt like some kids just wanted to give up, unlike what we showed later in the season with our ability to battle back and grind to win the games that we did.? Continued...

So what changed?

?We knew that we were always going to be the underdogs and that people just counted us out from the beginning,? Koenn said. ?Knowing that it gave us that drive and determination to prove those people wrong. We also had a lot of determined seniors that wanted to win so badly and leave our mark on putting Chelsea baseball back on the right track for the years to come.?

Despite the proud tradition, the Chelsea baseball program had struggled in recent years. And it looked like this year would be another season of disapointment.

?We lost something like 80 games in the last four years,? Taylor said. ?That?s not Chelsea baseball. And it?s not the program coach Welton created here. The seniors decided enough was enough and wanted to be the group to help get things back on track.?

They also eliminated what Taylor said was the bad inning or the big mistake. Early in the season, it seemed one bad inning or one crucial mistake would doom the Bulldogs.

?We just got closer as a team and realized that we are as good as any team out there and we deserve to win just as much as any other team,? Marable said. ?With more practice we were a very solid defensive team and our bats came alive, which resulted in our strong surge of victories at the end of the season.?

Pitching also played a big part in the Bulldogs? success.

?Marable and (Jarred) Scheese really stepped up and started pitching well and that allowed us to use Alex (Maloney) only when we needed him,? Taylor said. ?It really gave our pitching staff depth and a solid one-two punch.?

It all just came together and once the Bulldogs gained some confidence, there was no stopping them.

?The whole time we all definitely felt that we were better than what the score board was showing,? Koenn said. ?At times in tough loses it would get us down because we all knew we should have more wins under our belt but they just weren?t producing. Continued...

?We just had to go to practice to get better and work out the kinks with what we were struggling on.?

And don?t ask coach Taylor how many games the Bulldogs won or lost this season.

?I really don?t know and to be honest, I don?t care,? he said. ?All I care about is that we played the game the right way. And we started to play the game the right way at the end of the season and looked what happened.?

Yeah, look what happened.

?(Coach Taylor) taught us to really care about the little things and he made us really think for the team and not just about ourselves. He did a great job his first year and I?m very happy for him with how the season turned out and I?m even happier to know him like I do. Chelsea baseball is in good hands.?