First of a two-part series
[Editor’s Note: Our columnist sits down with Culver City High School’s baseball coach.]
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Baseball Coach Rick Prieto. Photo, George N. Laase
Q: Last year the Centaurs went 10-0 and were Ocean League champs. There were 12 seniors on that team. So you lost about half of your roster to graduation.
Rick Prieto: We’ve basically lost the whole starting team in terms of positions, all our reserves and closing pitchers. We lost Tyler Mark, who is at Cal State Dominguez Hills, where he’s doing a great job right now. He got an opportunity to pitch against No. 1 Chico State not long ago.
We lost 12 quality young men who had been in our program for four years. It is of the upmost importance to be part of the program from beginning to the end. It’s good that I had an opportunity to meet some of them prior to coming to the high school because they came up through our youth baseball camp that we’ve held for 16 years. It is pleasing for me to see some of the youth who came up through the Middle School actually do end up playing for us at the varsity level.
Q: Losing so much talent to graduation, is this going to be a year of rebuilding?
RP: I’ve been asked that many times before, and I’ll answer it now the same way. I don’t really know what the term “rebuilding” means. This program has been to the playoffs for 10 consecutive years. We didn’t rebuild then. So we are not rebuilding now.
Q: Who among the junior and senior players do you expect to step up and become the team’s leaders?
RP: You’re always looking for the sophomores and juniors from the JV team to step up. This year, they have the opportunity. But the most important thing is our “core players” that we currently have in place. We have three returning varsity players. Two of them were all-league last year. That’s our foundation right there.
Q: Could you name the players and their positions?
RP: There’s Darian Sylvester –shortstop, Jay Sterner – a pitcher, and Daniel Hennessey. There’s Juan Alcala, a senior this year. He played about half the season with us at the varsity level last year. Timothy Stewart had about 20 at-bats last season. He didn’t get that much playing time because of the seniors’ success. We’re counting on Juan and Timothy to step up this year. This is their time to shine because last year they had to work to get playing time. This year they will be starters.
Q: You expect them to lead by example, right?
RP: Right. That is what I expect of them. Timothy will be our centerfielder and Juan will be our first baseman. Daniel Hennessy is our catcher now. We converted him from third base. These are our core players. Nate Matthews, who pitched about 16 total innings last year, will be playing in the outfield this season. He has a strong arm and is good sized. He can hit the ball. Jay Sterner will be in right field.
We have two freshmen starting: At second base is Michael Netzel and at third is Kelvin Murillo. We are putting two young men into a situation where, I believe wholeheartedly, they can play. They have had the experience of playing summer baseball from mid-June until August and winter baseball from early October to mid-February.
(To be continued)
Mr. Laase may be contacted at GMLaase@aol.com
