Mustangs take 2nd, prepare for bi-district
The Grapevine baseball team is back in the postseason. However, the Mustangs won’t represent District 6-5A as the district champion. That honor belongs to Birdville, which won last week’s meeting, 5-1.
Grapevine (19-5-1, 9-2) wrapped up second place and finished the regular season on Tuesday with senior night against Fort Worth Eastern Hills. Because they still have one bye remaining, the Mustangs will not play on Friday. They also have used up their non-district game allotment and cannot play a warmup game.
“We had a rough night against Birdville,” head coach Lee Yeager said. “We’re going to use the rest of the week to get some guys to work on their swings and use some one on one settings for them. We’re probably going to go intrasquad on Thursday and then have a light day on Friday so we can go scout.”
There is still some matters to be decided in District 5-5A. However, it looks as if Grapevine will meet Saginaw Chisholm Trail in the Region I bi-district round. Any playoff matchups likely should be set either late Friday or sometime over the weekend.
With standardized testing next week, Yeager said the teams could not start a best two-out-of three series until Thursday, May 6. If that happened, Yeager said he likely would have another scrimmage early next week.
In the loss to Birdville, the Grapevine pitching staff struggled with the bottom of Hawks lineup walking the No. 8 hitter twice. With the game tied, 1-1, in the seventh, the Mustangs made some critical mistakes that cost them. Plus, this lineup gave up some plate appearances with 10 strikeouts.
“I don’t think we competed very well because we weren’t grinding out at bats,” Yeager said. “We’re not going to be a free swinging team. So we still have some work to do.”
As for how Yeager will play his pitching, he said he it was going to be determined by matchups. He’s been using sophomore right-hander Connor Neuman and senior right-hander Nick Evarts. However, others will be considered. Given that he doesn’t have a power arm on staff, it will take some strong evaluation.
“We really want to get everything in line,” Yeager said. “We don’t have a pitcher who has gone over 25 innings this season, so we have kept them fresh. But we’ll just have to see how this week goes and the first part of next week to see what we want to do. Of course, we’re going to try and win with our best guys.”
Colleyville Heritage update
Confounded by offensive problems all season, the Panthers (6-16, 2-8 in District 7-6A) just could never establish consistency and were eliminated from the playoff race last week. They lost games to Carroll and twice to Coppell.
It’s the first time in head coach Alan McDougal’s nine seasons that Colleyville Heritage has missed the postseason. The Panthers conclude the regular season with a home-and-home series against Euless Trinity. The 7-6A playoff teams will be Trinity, Coppell, Carroll and Richland.
This story was originally published April 27, 2015 at 3:17 PM with the headline "Mustangs take 2nd, prepare for bi-district."