Without an official inning in the books yet, Wesley King already knows that his first baseball team at Christ School has two things which cannot be taught – coachability and speed.
The Greenies travel to Cannon School on Thursday for their season opener at 4 p.m., just 48 hours after winning their only preseason scrimmage (9-5 at Southside Christian, S.C.).
“Since we started our workouts and weight sessions in September, the guys have grown so much together,” Coach King said.
“They’re buying into our team concepts and philosophies. Their communication and accountability have been good. Guys are doing what the team needs and putting the team above themselves. Hopefully we’ll be able to reap the benefits. One of our real strengths is team speed. You start looking around the diamond and we have some guys who can really run and do some things that disrupt the other team. I think we can put a pretty good starting nine out there.”
A trio of Christ School standouts – Andrew Grande ’21 (Rice University), Garrett Clapsaddle ’21 (U.S. Merchant Marine Academy), and Michael Posse ’22 (UNC Wilmington) – have made college commitments since the 2020 season was cut short by COVID-19. The Greenies went 5-1 last spring, winning their last five games.
Other returning players with starting experience are Cayden Jones ‘24, Webb Hughes ‘22, Coleman Taylor ‘21 and Mickey Meguiar ‘21.
When it comes to pitching, Coach King expects Michael (2-0 with a 0.00 earned-run average and 13 strikeouts in 6.0 innings last year) to be Christ School’s ace, with lots of different arms to choose from after that. Garrett, Mickey, Mac Kimel ’22, Parker Davis ’22, Billy Thackston ’21, Jackson Ogren ’22, and Charlie Bell ’21 are some of the other pitchers in the mix.
“I know that some of these guys like Garrett and Mickey haven’t really thrown a whole lot before. We’ve asked these guys to be open to coaching and they’ve really worked hard with (assistant coach David Williams),” Coach King said.
“We’re going to have multiple guys who can give different looks in different outings.”