It wasn’t a stretch as the Lobos beat Crockett in the opening baseball game. (photo by Cyndy Slovak-Barton)
by Robert Whitmer
The Lehman High baseball team opened their season last night against the visiting Crockett Cougars. The Lobos were coming off of last year that ended in disappointment as they failed to reach the .500 mark.
New year, new expectations. “Last year we lost a lot of close games that we should have won and that cost us a shot at the playoffs. This year we are focusing on the small stuff that we didn’t do last year,” Lehman head coach Toby Robinson said. What does the team needed to work? Robinson said, “Teamwork.”
In sports we hear almost every day about teams not being able to get along and you can see that reflected in the games. This, however, is not an issue for the Lehman Lobo baseball squad. One of the Lobos has the opening song from “The Lion King” as his song as he walks up to bat. Each and every time he was at the plate, the remaining players in the dugout regaled the fans with their rendition of the Disney classic. This team has no issue with getting along.
I asked senior leaders DJ Trejo and Ben Flores what they felt the team needed to work on in order to not repeat last year. “We need to work on working together to get over the small things that might not go the way we want it to in the games.” They didn’t know it at the time but this was foreshadowing for the first inning of the game.
Starting Lobo pitcher Hunter Lehman struggled with his control at the start of the game. Between some walks and wild pitches he gave up one unearned run to start the game off, but more than made up for it in the third inning by blasting a three-run home run to left field. That calmed him down and he was cruising the rest of the game. He ended up with five innings pitched, giving up two hits, while striking out eight and walking four. At the plate he went 2-3 with a home run, double and 4 RBI. Needless to say, he took home the player of the game honor for the Lobos who went on to win the game 6-3.
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Related stories:
- Lobo baseball shuts out LBJ 4-0 02/27/2013
- Lehman beats Seguin 10-5 03/13/2013
- Rudy writes game-winning script for Lehman baseball team 03/28/2012
