Johnson City baseball prepares for more weeks of play

The Johnson City High School baseball team will play Granger for a bi-district championship in a best-of-three series in Lago Vista that begins at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 4.

Game two is at 5 p.m. Friday, May 5, and game three, if necessary, follows the second contest.

“I wanted to do a doubleheader on day one,” Eagles head coach Steven Shipley said. “It’s a one seed versus a four seed. I feel confident.”

The Eagles (16-6, 12-0 District 28-2A champions) haven’t played since their 17-4 run-rule win against Center Point April 24.

Since then, they’ve spent the days leading up to the start of the postseason on fundamentals, lifting weights and staying crisp knowing they want to keep playing for several weeks.

“We had a warm-up game (April 28) against Blanco that got rained out,” the coach said. “(Our players) have scrimmaged each other. We’ve had looks at the plate from the different pitchers. There have been no changes to our practices.”

The Eagles are applying the lessons they learned during the 2-1 regional quarterfinal loss to Refugio in 2022.

“You realize how close you are after the third round and you get to the fourth round, you’re in the regional semifinals,” Shipley said. “We’re really close to going to the state tournament. You’re three wins away from a state championship game. Once you get past that third round, now we have a chance to go to that state tournament.”

Coaches have the option of playing in a one-game, winner-take-all contest or a series until the fifth round of the playoff or the regional finals. With starting pitchers McCray Jacobs, a junior, and Johnny Slawinski, a sophomore, don’t be surprised to see Johnson City want to play a series in every round. The reason is simple.

“On any given day, everybody has a chance,” Shipley said. “You may have an off day, the weather is an issue, you have a good hitting team and the wind is blowing in. It can neutralize a hitting advantage.”

He noted the bigger challenge for the Eagles comes from the mental side of the sport. Some players may put an expectation on themselves to deliver at the plate.

“A lot of times you have kids who feel that pressure,” he said. “And it makes it harder to perform. We talk a lot about trust, that whoever is at the plate is giving everything they have. We put that trust in each other. It’s in all of us.”

And as the school year gets closer to ending, fewer events are happening that takes the focus from playing baseball, which also is a positive for the Eagles.

“Now the only thing on your mind is baseball,” Shipley said.

And as proud as he is of the performances of his players throughout this season, he is most pleased with what he’s hearing from them.

“A lot of that is confidence and the desire — I want to make a run in the playoffs,” he said. “When your kids talk about three, four and five rounds, there’s an expectation to go three, four, five rounds. It makes my job easier.”

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