Jake LeDuc has been through every season imaginable as a baseball coach. From the top-end talent groups to the inexperienced bunches, he’s seen it all.
And the tenor afterwards for the Centralia High School baseball team’s leader on Wednesday night was one of being direct and hopeful.
The Tigers bring back just four players that saw key varsity innings last spring and the youthfulness showed in a 12-3 season-opening loss to Hoquiam in a non-league contest held in the new athletic complex that features four turfed fields.
“I don’t think the final score is indicative of what the game was at all,” LeDuc said. “They put the ball in play, that was the big difference.”
Wheeler Field was unable to be played for the first pitch. That too is turfed, part of a lot of newness surrounding Centralia (0-1).
Outside of new players seeping into new roles, it has a new assistant coach in former Black Hills assistant Mark Mounts. It has a nearly whole new pitching staff and multiple players that finished a seven-inning varsity game for the first time.
Jon Leedy, who has had fiery moments before on the diamond, is one of the core leaders for this year’s team.
“This season is less about putting on a show for myself and being an example for the younger guys so they have someone to look up to,” Leedy said.
For much of the day, Centralia was within reach of tying the game.
It left four runners in scoring position through the first five innings. Leedy roped a leadoff double in the first inning and was left stranded. The Tigers cut a four-run deficit in half on back-to-back RBI walks in the fifth by Mykal Sneller and Kadin Yeung.
Still, the hit they needed to break the game open never came.
“One more hit, it is a totally different game,” LeDuc said. “I like aggressiveness when we get a fastball. We didn’t do a great job at times of that.”
Hoquiam added an insurance run in the sixth and posted seven runs in the final half-inning on five hits, two walks, a hit by pitch and an error. It registered 15 hits and drew six walks against four Tigers pitchers.
Yeung earned the start and only gave up two earned runs plus he notched five strikeouts.
“He did very well,” Leedy said. “He was throwing strikes.”
The Grizzlies grabbed a 4-0 cushion on two runs in the third and two more in the fifth. Centralia succumbed to three errors and only recorded four hits, just one went for extra bases. Leedy, Hudson Waterfield, Jake Johnson and Sneller all finished with a hit.
Wednesday marked the start of a 21-game regular season for the Tigers. They get an extra game and fully plan to take advantage of a non-league schedule that continues on Friday against Rochester.
Leedy isn’t putting past the Tigers to go on a string of victories as the season rolls along.
“Camaraderie would help a lot,” he said. “Build those relationships and get to know each other (better).”
