CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — From a playoff dry spell of over a decade to three rounds deep, Alice baseball is looking to start a new tradition
"I think in 2009 was the last time they went to the regional quarter finals," said Baseball Head Coach Nick Alvarado.
Playing in post season was something the boys on this team had not yet experienced before 2021, so making it last season was a brand-new adventure.
"The environment was different," said Cash Benavidez, senior pitcher and D1 commit, "everything was just different".
It was the same feeling for coach Alvarado.
"I was getting phone calls and text messages from my buddies here and coaches and you really don't understand that, and we were getting police escorts out of town every week," said Alvarado.
But the past is long gone. Alice Baseball lost five seniors, but unlike before, the Coyotes have two D1 commits on their team right now. Cash Benavidez and Matthew Molina.
"This senior class was my first freshman class so they're my babies and to have two D1 commits is extremely special," said Benavidez.
Having two power-house players on one team is pretty good, but they said it takes a team learning from slip ups in the past that will establish a new normal for the program.
"The game has a lot of failures so just learning to play through failure is the biggest thing. I know I went through it a lot and I just kept on playing," Benavidez added.
Coach Alvarado said his guys let their defense drive the game.
"Our philosophy is to be able to throw the ball to contact and let our defense play and our offense will start coming around and we do a lot of things. Some people call it small ball, we call it inside game," said coach Alvarado.
The Coyotes have their next scrimmage on Monday at Ray starting at 6 p.m..
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