Tomball baseball season is underway with another title to uphold. The players are ready for round two at Round Rock and winning another title this year is definitely on their minds.
Coming into the season the Cougars are looking to defend their state championship and being the reigning champions certainly comes with a lot of pressure.
“We have a target on our back for sure,” varsity pitcher CJ Sampson said. “It’s like we are the team now. Everybody in Texas knows we’re the team to beat. We’re not just going out and competing, but we’re playing at a championship standard and teams are gonna make it their everything just to beat us.”
A new season starting up means new players joining the team as some leave. Lots of senior leadership graduated last year and the returners have to find a way to now step into those new roles.
“Coming into the year we’re starting to build team chemistry and trying to recreate what we had last year,” Sampson said. “We had 17 seniors graduate and I feel like team chemistry was a big part in last year’s run. We wanna rebuild that with this new squad and get on the same roll we were on.”
As seniors graduate, new freshmen come in wanting to keep the great performance going and make sure they live up to the standards and expectations of the Cougars and the baseball program.
“We have to reset our culture every year naturally when new guys come in and we have guys graduate,” said head baseball coach Doug Rush. “When you have a good culture, which we do, you try to reteach it to the guys coming in through the guys who’ve been here passing it down.”
The freshman and sophomores who are incoming have lots to live up to after a state title and this first season of their careers will be a test.
“I believe we are going to do well having a really good team especially the new guys we have and the returning players so I think we can win the district.” freshman Colt Sampson said.
These new players have learned a bit from the prep team and baseball class. They’ve been around Coach Doug Rush and the older guys and are now looking to carry what they’ve learned onto the field.
“We should be good at keeping our culture. So far this year we’ve been pretty good at it and hopefully we can keep it going strong and get another state championship.” said freshman Keagan Fosdick
Through the break the players on the team are hard at work ready for the busy season to come. They know the expectations of the community and are preparing for their pursuit of a back-to-back title run
“We have been working hard all fall long. After class they go off and get their extra training in and these boys are definitely prepared to have a successful season.” Coach Rush said.
The season is early but they know teams will be eager to test them.
“Obviously coming off a championship run our job is to recreate that and keep the fire burning,” CJ sampson said. “The way we’re doing that is working hard day after day to stay prepared. We know what’s at stake and we know what we have in this group, and our first priority is keeping our culture that Coach Rush has built because it won a state championship and tradition never graduates.”
