Mental battle
The nightcap has been keeping the West Valley Eagles up at night lately.
In their first baseball season in the Class 2A Great Northern League, the Eagles have fallen into a troubling pattern.
“We go out, and we dominate teams in the first game of our doubleheaders,” junior left-handed starter Andy Vennum said. “We beat teams by nine or 10 runs in the first game, but we turn around and struggle in the second game.”
The Eagles are 13-5 overall, 9-3 in league going into the final two games of the season Friday at Colville. West Valley is tied with Pullman for first place after surrendering three runs in the sixth inning to let Cheney escape with a 10-9 come-from-behind win in the second game of last Friday’s doubleheader. Clarkston is a game back of the Eagles and Greyhounds at 8-4 in league, followed by Medical Lake at 7-5. Colville and Cheney both are 6-6 and assured of playing first-round, loser-out playoff games. Deer Park and Riverside both are eliminated from postseason.
West Valley coach Don O’Neal took steps Monday to correct his team’s problem.
The Eagles run a daily drill called “21 Outs.” In it, O’Neil, with his trusty fungo bat, forces the West Valley defense to string together seven-innings worth of outs without making a fielding or throwing error.
Monday, once the team finished their string of 21 successive plays, it ran a long series of lines in the outfield, then returned to the field to repeat the drill.
“We’ll get them all good and winded and then go back and do it all again,” he said. “You have to learn to concentrate when you’re tired.”
“We had a good workout,” Vennum, the team’s No. 1 starter, said. “We do that drill every day, and today we did it tired. I think that will help.
“It has to be a mental letdown. There’s no other explanation.”
The Eagles are a sweep on the road away from clinching at least a tie for the league title and a first-round playoff bye because of the way they swing the bat.
The West Valley offense has scored more than 10 runs in a game 11 times this season. Cheney needed to score 10 to pull out last week’s win.
Vennum has been the beneficiary of the team’s first-game intensity. In his 38 2/3 innings pitched, opponents have scored just 19 runs, 16 of them earned, giving him an earned run average of 2.89. The lefty has walked just 14, while striking out 57.
Last season Vennum was 4-0 as a starter behind the team’s No. 1, left-hander Greg Bradley.
That success motivated the junior to focus on baseball.
“I had a pretty good sophomore year,” Vennum said. “I had been wrestling, but this year I didn’t so that I could concentrate on working out with my pitching coach all winter. I came into this season stronger.”
Vennum said the team was confident coming into the season despite having a dozen players graduate off last year’s Greater Spokane League team.
“We have a bunch of guys who all played last year,” he said. “Only a couple of them were starters, but a lot of us played. And we have a really strong group of seniors who have been great leaders.
“We knew coming in that, since we’d been competitive in the GSL that we should be able to handle teams in the GNL.”
The difference between pitching to opponents in the Class 4A-dominated GSL and those in the GNL lies in the team’s depth.
“Against the GNL, you only have to worry about three, maybe four hitters in every lineup,” he said. “After that, you pretty much just have to worry about throwing strikes and letting them hit the ball.
“It’s the same way with starting pitchers. Most teams’ No. 1 starter will come out and throw a fastball in the 80-85 mph range. Their No. 2 starter probably throws more in the 70-75 mph range.”
The Eagles like to hit against pitchers who bring the heat.
“We would all rather hit against a guy with a good fastball,” Vennum said. “You just dig in and go after it. Against slower guys, you have to learn to be more patient. You don’t want to turn your wrists over and get out ahead of guys like that.”