-Blade Vaqueros Baseball Beat

I once heard assistant baseball coach at the time Jerry Hardin address the 2017-18 team at a pre-season practice by saying "get ready guys-the season is a grind" and I couldn't help but think to myself...

"Maybe for you."

I can't imagine even one player thinking that. I can't imagine even one of the coaches thinking that, not these coaches anyway.

You hear so many life-long baseball players and coaches use the sentence "I never worked a day in my life" and that's how baseball is so you can't tell me these coaches don't wake up every day ready to rock in the quest for another JUCO National Championship.

Because they do.

Here we go boys!

With the split DH at Yavapai Saturday, Central finished the regular season at 46-10 with an amazing 32-5 conference record and as the number one seed, will face the number four seed in Arizona Western Thursday at home.

It's a best of three face-off in the Conference championship and as we always say, the toughest thing to do in a World Series run is get out of this conference.

The regular season was filled with win after win in countless different ways from not any one particular player, but you sure could count on the pitching staff to get you a solid performance almost every day out. Two of the top three pitchers in the nation are Vaqueros as starters, in Matt Wilkinson and Patrick Steitz, Wilkinson led the D1 pitchers in ERA this season with a 1.08 ERA, Steitz was third with a 1.18.

Each of these two gave a total of nine earned runs apiece the entire season. Wilkinson threw 75 innings, Steitz threw 68. Starter Theo Millas also finished under two earned runs per game with an ERA of 1.90. Reliever Josh Aribal gave up TWO earned runs this year. Reliever Mario Bejarano gave up three. Michael Trausch and Jasiah George gave up five apiece.

Solid?

Sure! This pitching staff led the nation in ERA at 2.34, seemingly a billion miles ahead of the numer two squad at 2.91

But look.

Four of the 2023 top ten in team ERA are ACCAC teams, and one of them didn't even qualify for post-season in Cochise. Central gave up a miniscule 3.1 walks per nine innings, also tops in the country.

I'm sure the coaches are proud of that, but we all know, it doesn't count right now. In last years World Champions, they led the JUCO World Series in ERA, so THAT is when it counts.

And even with those incredible accomplishments, I'm pretty sure that not a single Central coach woke up this morning thinking of any of that, forward, always forward.

Central has a flat-out full pitching staff, Arizona Western has three go-to's. And they're good.

The fun part now is watching which pitcher goes where and when because regular season pitching turn-taking doesn't exist in post season, but you can pretty much count on Wilkinson being the game one starter, and Steitz starting game two.

The Vaqueros will hit and run in a variety of ways with a variety of players, one through nine, and let's watch the catching in this post-season. I predict this will be a big factor.

And remember, the less you notice the catching, the better it is.

So far so good.

-"There are hundreds of ways to win a baseball game. We just have to find one."

-Head Coach Anthony Gilich.