BOYS OF WINTER
Last week’s cold temperatures may not be quintessential baseball weather, but it still marked a span of days for the upcoming Greyhound baseball season.
Baseball was among the sports able to officially begin practice last week, and Jones County was among the schools doing so, taking to Cecil Patterson Field with a mix of potential and returning players as the final roster was set by the end of the week.
“Other than the one day when we had the hard freeze, we got a good bit of practice in. We’ve had a good week of practice,” Greyhounds head coach Mike Paulk said. “Guys in this state know that in January and February we’ll be playing baseball. There’s an adjustment, but it’s also just like in the summer when you have to account for the heat.”
Although getting a look at players not yet on the roster could be seen as a tryout, the Greyhounds coaches took a varied approach. Instead of tossing inexperienced players onto the field as a group, potential players were given a practice plan in December, allowing them to study play diagrams, giving the JCHS staff a gauge of how they’d approach other parts of playing, as well.
And instead of putting them on the field separately, new and old players took part in workouts amongst each other, offering a look at how they’d gel with one another.
“Technically, this is a tryout, but we didn’t do a traditional tryout,” Paulk said. “We want to see how they’d do in a practice environment. They had a month to study diagrams and were able to access it. It helped us see, No. 1, can you physically do this, and also, do you have the mental capacity to study it and can you do it?”
The week was more than getting a look at players. It also gave a look at how one element of adversity would be handled – the weather and the cold that came with it last week.
“I haven’t seen a drop off in effort, we’ve seen some good stuff this week,” Paulk said.
“We’ve seen some guys in some situations, and it gives you trust in what they’d do in game situations. When you’re in that setting, you won’t be thinking of the cold, you’ll be thinking about making plays.”
