Athletes Connection - Impressive turnaround catapults Cypress Creek into postseason (with bi-district pairings)

	Impressive turnaround catapults Cypress Creek into postseason (with bi-district pairings)
	Monday April 28, 2008
	Written by Dave Purpura

The first time Mike McCollum watched the Cypress Creek baseball team play a summer league game in 2007, their new coach knew a reconstruction project awaited.

Coming off a season in which the Cougars went winless in District 17-5A, “I noticed there was no team play at all,” McCollum said. “There wasn’t a lot of team stuff going on at all before I got here.”

So once autumn arrived, McCollum resurrected a tactic that earned him a 24-4A championship at Terry in 2007, sending that school to the playoffs for only the second time in 28 years.

“We didn’t do any baseball stuff (in the fall),” he said. “We lifted weights. We ran a lot. We did everything as a team. We didn’t pick up any baseballs until early December. I told them they had to earn that right.”

Sixteen wins later, the Cougars earned third-place in 17-5A and a postseason berth. They will play Katy Taylor in the bi-district round Friday and Saturday.

With only three players back from the 2007 team and the entire starting pitching staff gone, Cy Creek is 16-11 overall and 10-6 in 17-5A. The Cougars ended the regular-season with a 9-4 loss to Cypress Woods Friday night.

The starting pitching has been outstanding. Seniors Brad Orosey and Jason Fink have led a rotation that has enjoyed 13 complete games, including six straight before Friday. Orosey, a three-year letterman, had struck out 85 in 55 innings entering Friday and employs several offspeed pitches, topping out at around 85 mph.

Orosey has played the past several weeks with a broken jaw sustained when he was hit in the face by a fastball in the Cougars’ first game against Langham Creek.

After taking the first several weeks to find itself, the Cougars offense is averaging about five runs a game. It scored nine runs against Cypress Falls and 13 in a run-rule of Jersey Village earlier this month.

Leadoff hitter Matt Adams is hitting .460. His cousin, No. 3 hitter Andrew Adams, leads the Cougars in RBIs.

But the prosperity didn’t come without setbacks.

Original starting catcher Jake Harris was injured before the season and returned last week, and second-string catcher Eric Weiss sustained a high ankle sprain and missed a month.

Sophomore catcher Greg Martinez came up from junior varsity to catch and is now the designated hitter.

“It’s helped us because those backup guys got a lot of experience during the tournament season,” McCollum said. “We really haven’t missed a beat.”

The season’s turning point, McCollum said, was a 13-0 loss to Klein in the Brenham tournament.

“Cy Creek still had the stigma (of) in big games finding ways to lose instead of winning,” he said. “We showed up that day and from our body language I could tell it wasn’t gonna be pretty. We had a rain delay that day after two innings and we were down 4-0 … and I chewed on them pretty good about being intimidated by (Klein). The next day we beat Round Rock Stony Point 5-1 and lost 6-4 to Brenham but I could tell there was a difference in them. …

“The kids believed in themselves from Day 1 that they could do this and we took it from there. It was bigger than baseball; bigger than just pitching, hitting and defense. The whole picture has brought this team together.”
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Area baseball bi-district schedule

Memorial vs. Milby
Game 1: 4 p.m. Friday at Delmar Stadium
Game 2: 3 p.m. Saturday at Stratford
* Game 3: 30 minutes after Game 2

Bellaire vs. Nimitz
One-game playoff: 5 p.m. Friday at Lansford Field

Lamar vs. MacArthur
Game 1: 7:30 p.m. Friday at Jersey Village
Game 2: 2 p.m. Saturday at Jersey Village
* Game 3: 30 minutes after Game 2