The Fruita Monument High School baseball team woke up the morning of April 4, the date of their Southwestern League opener, as losers of four straight games.
A less than ideal showing in a spring break tournament in Arizona and subsequent stumbles against Front Range opponents had the Wildcats two games below .500 — perilous territory to be in before league play began.
Now, just more than one week later, the Wildcats are off to a 3-0 start in the SWL and, on the heels of a series sweep over Palisade, appear to be primed for a run at the league title. What changed?
“Sometimes losing’s an OK thing. I think this helps us with games like this,” Wildcats head coach Casey Sullivan said after Friday’s 2-1 win over Palisade.
On the surface, Sullivan’s quote might sound outlandish, and understandably so. Sure, biting off more than you can chew in tournaments against quality opponents such as Bishop Manogue — which is 17-4 and undefeated in 5A Northern league play in baseball hotbed Reno, Nevada — can add some unsightly blemishes to a team’s record. But Sullivan’s message also has merit, and the proof is in the Wildcats’ recent turnaround.
Since opening league play at Montrose, Fruita Monument has outscored SWL opponents 17-2, with the Wildcats’ hitters connecting on three home runs and their pitchers striking out 25 batters in the three games to take sole control of first place in the SWL standings.
Senior catcher Karson Reed has been a sparkplug at the dish for the Wildcats’ offense. The Cuesta College commit boasts two home runs on the season, both in the past week. A fourth-inning grand slam from Reed helped lift the Wildcats past Montrose, but the senior’s biggest contribution to his team was the game-winning two-run shot in extra innings at Palisade on Tuesday.
Josh Weaver, meanwhile, has been a force both at the plate and on the mound for Fruita over the past two weeks. The latest in a long line of Weavers to be impact players at the varsity level for the Wildcats had a home run of his own in the eighth inning of the first matchup with Palisade, a game in which he pitched seven innings of three-hit baseball and struck out eight.
Gavin Cardoza has also been brilliant on the mound for Fruita Monument. The junior pitched 5 1/3 innings across two games against Palisade, only surrendering one run and striking out as many Bulldogs, six, as hits he allowed.
Then, of course, there’s fleet-footed senior Jimmy Hawkins, whose steal of home in the fifth inning of Friday’s game against Palisade capped off the team’s three-game winning streak. As the Wildcats’ leadoff hitter, Hawkins’ speed and heads-up base running has been an X-factor for Fruita’s offense as it continues to improve game by game.
The sum of a well-rounded group of talented ballplayers is a team that’s undefeated in SWL play. That would have seemed unthinkable in the midst of Fruita’s four-game losing skid just over a week ago. The Wildcats’ turnaround has been sudden, to be sure, but perhaps not unpredictable — at least, not in the eyes of the team’s coaching staff.
“I told the boys, ‘Guys, you gotta play with some joy,’ ” Sullivan said after the Wildcats’ first win over Palisade. “We’ve been kind of taking it on the head recently. We need to enjoy it and live in the moment.”
Helping high school athletes re-center their focus is no small feat, but it’s also paramount to staying above water in the competitive Southwestern League. it wasn’t fun, but maybe a punch in the mouth over spring break was exactly what the Wildcats needed to kick start their SWL schedule and get back on track to make noise in the postseason.
