Hardaway baseball back in contention despite lack of depth

Hardaway coach Chris Gilstrap laughed when considering the depth of other high school baseball teams in comparison to his own.

On the one hand, he said, it would certainly be nice to have a stable of arms to turn to if his starting pitcher is having an off afternoon. On the other, that would mean other headaches, like who to bring in for which situations and players who feel like they should be getting more of a chance than someone else.

“In some ways it’s a blessing,” he said of his team’s lack of depth, “ because it keeps me from having to deal with other people who wonder why they’re not getting a chance.”

On Hardaway, every player gets a chance — all 17 of them. And if they’re struggling, they’re going to get a chance to figure it out as they go.

“That’s where we’re all from,” Gilstrap said. “Our kids are the type of kids who have been grinding their whole life. We know going into it that we’re not going to have that 10-man bullpen. We’re not going to have a mistake here and we run the next guy out there. We’re blessed to have some good players, but we just don’t have the depth.”

On the mound, only three players have pitched significant innings. Mykel Page has pitched just over 25, Chandler Griggs just over 23 and Jordan Manibusan 18. Only three others have toed the rubber — Tristan Driver, Hunter Duke and Chris Garner — and they’ve combined for just seven innings of baseball pitched.

In the field, Gilstrap acknowledged that there will be players in the lineup who have to play every pitch of the season. They prepare for those situations by conditioning before the season, getting into the best possible shape they can be in because they know the toll the season will take on them.

“We’d like to have those people who can give us a spell here and there, but that’s not the case for us,” Gilstrap said. “Our guys are used to it, and they deal with it well and we try to prepare them for that.”

That means battling through a long afternoon on the mound. When Page defeated Northside 4-2 in a complete-game effort earlier this season, it took some work to escape a seventh-inning jam that nearly turned the game in the Patriots’ favor. After that game, Gilstrap said there was never a consideration of putting in a fresh arm because they couldn’t afford it.

“Like everyone says, we don’t have that team that has a ton of pitchers who can shut everybody down,” Page said. “Whoever is out there has to do their job and get it done. We don’t have a lot who can come in and pick it up if they don’t.”

Now, as the team battles through an offensive slump that has seen it scatter 11 hits and just five runs over the past two games, the Hawks will rely on their regular players to figure it out, rather than giving a player or two a day off to figure it out.

It may be the team’s biggest weakness, but players and coaches also think it is one of their strengths. Despite the lack of depth, the team is 8-3 overall and 4-2 in Region 1-5A play, good enough for third place. The Hawks are tied in the loss column with second-place Northside and one game back of first-place Columbus.

Page said the team knows they don’t have all the resources of some others, but that they don’t have a chip on their shoulder because of how hard they’ve worked to be there.

“I know we work hard for our spots,” he said. “When we’re in the weight room, we’re working hard, the coaches push us hard. It’s not a chip on our shoulder, because we know we worked hard to be here.”

“We lost some talent that we had (last year), but I think we’ve still got a team full of good young players who can make it happen,” senior Sam Anthony said.

This story was originally published March 23, 2016 at 4:24 PM with the headline "Hardaway baseball back in contention despite lack of depth."