Just a year ago Westside baseball finished their season with a 13-13 record and lost 10 seniors coming into the 2024 season. Halfway through the season the Warriors record is 8-7, with the most difficult of the stretches behind them. After the season last year it wasn’t crazy to think this season would be rough but the Warriors are showing they can compete with some young talent on the roster.
“The season has gone well so far,” head coach Otis Seals said. “We talked a little bit about how we have a lot of new guys and different pieces this year compared to years past. So we’re going to spend the first couple of weeks kind of mixing and matching some lineups and just see who fits best where and things like that. So I expect that a couple of growing pains early on, but one thing that we need to continue to do or continue to work on us is throwing strikes you know, for our first few games we had some losses stack up mostly because we weren’t throwing strikes, we’ve given away too many free bases and so in our last few games has been a lot better and so we just got to continue to build off that.”
The new talent on the Warriors is a huge part of why the team has been so successful. There are nine juniors on the team and just six seniors on the roster. Freshman Marcus Chandler has also made a huge impact on the season, hitting .367 and has an ERA of 2.86 on the year. Coach Seals credits the success of young talent to the summer legion team.
“Having a lot of those new guys last year sophomores play Legion for us you know on the varsity team was really helpful and we had a really good Legion season last year,” Seals said. “You know we finished number one overall in the in league play. But having them you know see that competition every day and make some adjustments that was really helpful in preparing them for the spring.”
This year’s pitching staff has been solid for the Warriors having a team ERA of 3.07. There are also six Warrior pitchers under a 3.00 ERA. Just like most teams the Westside pitching staff have had their ups and downs. The Warrior offense has been very similar as well, with some games better than others. Overall coach Seals has been impressed with the way they’ve played this season.
“I mean the offense has been really good,” Seals said. “ We’ve faced some good pitchers already this year and our hitters have responded really well. And I think that’s more of a credit to their work ethic and these kids have worked real hard since October, whether it was workouts outside when it was still nice out or hitting indoors. They’ve worked really hard and some kids on our field that never missed a workout all offseason. And so it’s good to see them step onto the baseball field and be rewarded for that hard work.”
The Warriors will continue the home stretch of the season on April 8 at Bellevue West. The Thunderbirds will face the Warriors after starting off the season 11-2.
