Baseball preview : Peer example
This story, about North Central High School senior Cory Swennumson, was going to be the leadoff to the Indians’ baseball season, which begins today against Lewis and Clark. After all, Swennumson is a two-year letterman for coach Scott Harmon, an everyday guy who also is a regular on the mound.
But after North Central’s magical run to a third-place trophy at last week’s State 3A boys basketball tournament, his role in two straight top-five finishes for the Indians in that sport can’t be ignored. Especially since the last time NC did that was in 1950-51.
NC’s baseball team lost 4-1 in the first round of last season’s 3A playoffs to eventual champion Newport of Bellevue, and both Swennumson and Harmon think that there are lessons to be learned from the basketball Cinderella story of the last two weeks. The Indians were 4-16 in the GSL regular season before winning seven of their final nine games to bring back another trophy.
“The biggest lesson I take from that is to never give up even when things aren’t going like you hope,” he said, “or if people are saying you can’t.
“I was surprised in Tacoma, but I knew all along that we had talent and had a chance to do something special like last year’s team did.
“What I can take to baseball from that is that we need to do the same thing, play as a team and not as a bunch of individuals. Boone (senior teammate Plager) and I need to be senior leaders on the field, help develop that same sort of chemistry, and when we go through a rough patch not ever let the guys give up.”
Harmon said that one of the reasons he went to the state basketball tournament was to see what lessons he could apply to the diamond this spring, and he came to the same conclusions as his first baseman.
“We have really good players all the way around the horn,” he said. “Sometimes, though, each of them tries to take too much upon himself and when that happens we break down as a team. The biggest thing we need to do this spring is pull together – if we do that, we can really thrive.”
That’s especially true of Swennumson, he says.
“Cory’s a kid who plays best when he’s a little loosey-goosey. He’s a fierce competitor, but if he gets tight, he doesn’t play as well. He needs to not let that competitiveness get in his way.
“Cory’s been an asset to this varsity program for going on three years. He’s been the key to our offense the past two seasons, and he’s also huge on the mound for us. He’s definitely got a shot to play in college, maybe even as a two-way guy. He hits for average and has decent power and knows how to play his position.”
Even as the Indians were winding up their tournament run last week, Swennumson was looking forward to baseball. And after taking Sunday off, he was right back at it on Monday, hoping that Cinderella’s slipper still fits.