Summer Hawks A's: It is all about A,B,Cs

The basics of the game of baseball are the focus of Cheney Summer Hawks A American Legion team head coach Aaron Rockey insists.

Wins and losses will take precedent later in the game he says but for now it's learning on all levels.

Rockey, a 2003 Cheney High School grad, and who has coached the better part of the prior two decades, is back as head coach after spending the past couple of seasons in what he called intermediate Little League. "I had a few of these kids on that team."

"It's been a few handful years - I think three or four - since I coached the single A Legion team," Rockey said.

Single-A Legion teams can have a wide range of races and grades. "I think they can be all the way up to like 17," Rockey said.

"For the most part our team is middle schoolers and high schoolers, like eighth grade freshman," Rockey explained. "We're pretty evenly split, eighth graders and ninth graders, the kids going into ninth and 10th grade."

The roster lists 14 players who can take part in games with an additional recuperating from an elbow injury. While that player can't play a position, he can have a role as a pinch runner.

When Rockey assessed his team, it was early in

the season with just a pair of practice games against the Medical Lake Dirt Dawgs, both losses. Since have come four wins, 12-0 and 4-0 at Deer Park and a pair of wins vs. Mead.

Carter Owens pitched a complete game in the 12-0 shutout while Lukas Eckhardt led the batting with a pair of doubles. The second game lasted just three innings due to lightning with Kolby Simmons tossing the shutout.

"It was kind of too late to wait the 30 minutes and get the kids home on a school night," Rockey said of attempting to finish the game.

Pitching strength was something Rockey noticed early in the process. Good pitching is probably critical. Sometimes you have it, and sometimes you don't.

"I think we have about seven or eight guys who can pitch, and a handful of them who can throw strikes pretty well," Rockey said. "The other handful just need to be taught how to do it," he added.

It's learning the game, not a win or loss that Rockey wants his players to take away from this season, and beyond if they pursue baseball in high school.

"I want them to hit the ball and I want them to hit it hard," Rockey said, and not fear if they stroke out or make errors.

The takeaway is have fun and learn. "Wins or losses aren't on my agenda," Rockey said. "It's more just teaching them the right way and how to be a good teammate."

Not knowing what the turnout might be and what experience he might have, Rockey opted to put his team in the lower of two single-A Legion divisions. Depending on how the season goes early in the process, "We'll probably try to make an adjustment and play a few more of those upper teams," Rockey said.