Casa Grande has been a top baseball program for a while, but slowly over time, each class had fewer players. However, this year, the freshman class had around 34 players try out. This is the biggest turnout Casa Grande has had in a long time, and this is good, because the more players the better! More players means lots of talent to make the best team possible.
Last year, Casa Grande’s Freshman baseball team had a 13-3 record in the regular season. They finished the year with 16-3 total. They went 9-1 at home, and 7-2 away. This year, Casa is hoping to continue this level of greatness.
Tryouts were held on February 9. The freshman team had its first scrimmage on Valentine’s Day against Monte Vista at home and their first official regular season game February 25 against Ukiah, also at home. Usually there are no cuts for freshmen; however, since there are around 30 players trying out, they will have to make cuts. After tryouts, the final roster came down to 21 players. Cutting athletes down to this number was a hard task for the freshmen coaches, especially since they don’t usually have to cut freshman. The coaches wanted the chance to develop every player, but cuts had to be made.
After all of this, the freshman team got ready for their first game of the season against Ukiah. Liam Allen was the starting pitcher for Casa Grande in this game. For the first two innings, he shut down Ukiah with three strikeouts. However, in the 3rd inning, Ukiah had the bases loaded, and Allen gave up a three-run double to put Ukiah up 3-0; Tanner Corso came in to pitch and finished the 3rd with no more damage done. In the 4th inning, after a scoreless inning from the new pitcher Bleu Parham, Justin Chesnut hit a single to lead off the inning, Trey Strickland was put in as a pinch runner for Chesnut because he had to get ready to pitch. Trey ended up stealing second and third base, and then Julian Meininger hit the ball to right field for a base hit (single) to score Trey.
This got Casa on the board with the score being 3-1. In the 5th inning, after new pitcher Chesnut struck out the side, with runners on first and second for Casa, base runners Logan Scotto and Parham attempted to steal. The catcher over threw the 3rd baseman and both runners scored to tie the game at three. The 6th inning is when Casa took control of the game. After another three strikeouts from Justin Chesnut, Nolan Conway came into the game to pinch hit for David Medina. Nolan hit a single that scored 1 more run to give the Gauchos the lead, then Logan Scotto hit a line drive to the shortstop he made an error and another run scored. The next at-bat, Benicio Dueñas, hit a 2-run double to give Casa a commanding 7-3 lead. In the last inning, Chesnut gave up one more run but got two more strikeouts to win the game 7-4.
As this next generation of Casa baseball begins, there is no doubt that they have a bright future ahead. From rallying from deficits and playing hard to the end, this group of freshman baseball players have the mentality and grit to put up more pennants for Casa Grande baseball.
