With a region title already secured, Lewisville baseball primed for playoffs
The Lewisville Lions became the first high school baseball team from York County, Chester County or Lancaster County to clinch a first place spot for the upcoming playoffs — and their record reflects their impressive play.
The Lions are 12-6 overall at present. But more importantly, they finished the Region 2-1A season with a mark of 5-1: Lewisville swept the C.A. Johnson Hornets and the Great Falls Red Devils in the regular season to open region play. They then split with McBee, but the Panthers lost to Great Falls, and that secured the top spot in the region for the Lions.
Lewisville head coach Blake Barron is pleased with the early clinching so that he can work on getting his team ready for the postseason.
“We have accomplished our first team goal, which was to win the region,” Barron told The Herald. “Now we have to continue to improve our team to meet the challenge of the playoffs.”
The Lions were 4-0 in the region when they played McBee the first time. They lost 10-3, but they regrouped and toppled the Panthers 11-3 later in that week to earn the region title. The win also delivered them something else, Barron said.
“That win gave us quite a bit of confidence,” he added. “We did not play well in the first meeting, but we did not hang our heads. We got it back together and won the region title.”
“After winning the region, we wanted to work on getting all phases of our game in order,” he added. “In addition we wanted to give some players a chance to show what they could do so we could build some depth.”
Barron said leadership is the team’s key to success thus far.
“Our seniors have done a great job thus far,” he said. “They led during the offseason, and they are leading now with their work ethic on the field. We had to shut down earlier in the year for two weeks, and they kept this team together.”
Lewisiville pitching has ‘been the backbone’ of success
Pitching has been the main reason the Lions are where they are right now. Seth Morrow, Ben Coyle and Chip Bowman (who committed to play baseball at Montreat College) have been the top pitchers thus far.
“Pitching has been the backbone of what we have accomplished thus far,” he added. “We do not have a dominant starter, but we have been consistent from top to bottom on the mound all year.”
The Lions play “small ball” for the most part on offense. They count on Morrow, Coyle, Bowman and Jayden Barnes to lead the way at the plate.
“We have done well thus far with hit and run, using the sacrifice bunt, and putting the ball in play,” he said. “We are getting better as the season goes along at the plate, but we still have some work to do.”
The defense has done a good job thus far, but Barron knows they need to get better.
“We work on our defense every day in practice,” he added. “We work on situations a lot in practice. We just need to keep doing that and stay focused on improving. That will be a big key going forward.”
Base running wins and loses games, and Barron likes what he has seen thus far from his team.
“We have very good team speed, and we are smart when we run the bases,” he said. “I look at base running like special teams in football. We know that part of the game is crucial, and we work on it a lot to include game-type situations.”
All that remains between now and the playoffs are some non-region games, which the Lions will use to improve on their skills. They complete their two-game set with Great Falls Friday night, and face Lancaster (4A), Indian Land (4A) and Buford (2A) to finish the regular season. Those three teams are all in higher classifications than Lewisville.
“We need to continue to get some quality playing time for all of our players,” he added. “That will be the key for us when we get to the playoffs.“