By Bridget Valls
Baseball always gets a lot of attention after going pretty far in the playoffs and having an impressive number of college commits. We had the Sams twins, James Lester, Joe Crenshaw, and Joel Lopez last year, and Cortland French, Jack Rees, and Will Forte this year.
One of the most important parts of this team and any team, especially at Lovett, is the chemistry. And this is definitely the case with this team.
“We are all friends, and there are no outliers; we all get along really well, and the energy is always high,” Luke Darsey(11) told me. He also told me there is no hierarchy of upperclassmen as some would expect. “We all are friends; the upperclassmen don’t think they are too cool for any of the younger players,” he said.
“We’ve really bonded through the year, and are ‘battle-tested,’” Cortland French(11) told me.
I was confused on this term ‘battle tested,’ but Tyler Wells (11) cleared it up for me. “We had a couple of tough losses because of one inning in the early parts of this season, and that really made us a lot closer,” he explained.
Senior Jack Rees joked that “there should be a hierarchy” before laughing and adding, “Nah, I’m just kidding, but our team chemistry is really good this year, and we are all close.”
It helps that they have a smaller team, according to junior Cade McKenzie. “Having a smaller team made us a tight group, and it is really fun playing with people you are close with,” he said.
Even though there is no hierarchy, the seniors still shape the team. “The seniors make pretty important decision like recently, they decided for us to start having Saturday practices instead of just hitting days, and ever since, we have been on a winning streak,” Luke Darsey told me.
Jack Rees was quick to defend their choice for these Saturday practices. “At the beginning of the season, we were kind of on and off. Not everyone was fully engaged, and we weren’t as close. And honestly, I feel like these Saturdays have brought us closer together. So now when the game time comes, everyone’s really close, and we’re just more of a team,” he said.
Another factor, according to Tyler Wells, is that they “started conditioning once a week, which I don’t think was a regular thing in past years, and we have been undefeated ever since we started it.”
All this juggling of many games and practices during tough school weeks can be pretty brutal.
“It’s actually really hard,” Darsey said. Luke tries to plan ahead on days he knows he will have late games or practices and tries to get ahead on assignments a few days early. “I knock them out, so during my game I do not have to be stressing about schoolwork and just play,” he said.
Jack Rees is going to be a student athlete for another 4 years at East Carolina for baseball, so he will have to continue achieving that balance.
“It is very challenging to maintain the athletics and academic balance, but I think that Lovett does a good job with helping the athletes with resources, and I am hoping that I can just keep doing what I am doing when I am in college, too,” He told me.
Beyond all of the effort and training, athletes have some pretty crazy superstitions or pregame rituals to push them over the edge.
“I wear the same socks every time I pitch; they are mismatched, and the Nike one always goes on my left foot, and the Under Armour one goes on my right foot,” Darsey told me.
The footwear theme continued. “I always put my left shoe on before my right shoe before games,” Jack said, laughing.
Both Darsey and Rees also told me about their after-game ritual featuring Shakira.
“Every time we win, we blast Shakira Hips Don’t Lie in the locker room after,” Darsey said. (Which is something I don’t think any of us expected from any of our baseball players).
One of their biggest games every year is the rivalry game against Holy Innocents, which will probably be even bigger this year because a Lovett baseball coach who coached last year is now coaching the other team.
“I’m most looking forward to the Holy Innocents game because of our rivalry, and I am pitching that game, so that’ll be fun,” Darsey said. (SO EVERYONE SHOW UP 4/7 AT BROOKS FIELD!!!)
With a record of 14-6 currently (which is already very good), Darsey says that the record does not show how good the team really is, and we are going to see this record just get better as the season goes on.
“Our season is going pretty well, but we do have one of the hardest schedules in Georgia (playing some of the top schools), so our record doesn’t really show it,” Darsey said.
After having a brother on the Lovett Baseball team and going to those games basically since I was born, I have become very aware of how important Walk-Up/Pitching songs are to them. So how do they pick their songs?
Luke Darsey told me his pitching song is Voodoo Child by Stevie Ray Vaughan. “I picked that because the guitar in that song is really cool, and it just kinda helps me focus in,” he said.
Jack Rees’s walk-up song is Calabria 2007 by Enur. “I chose it because I think it is just a cool song and hypes me up,” he said.
Cade McKenzie likes the Bad Boys theme song by Inner Circle. “I chose it because I really like the intro,” he said.
In the end, high school sports are meant to be fun and create community on campus, and the Lovett Baseball team has done just that. Luke Darsey put it very simply:
“We are just a bunch of friends playing a game.”
