CHS junior varsity team playing over summer

Published 6:00 am Monday, May 30, 2011

Another summer and more chances for his players to play baseball and get some experience.

That sums up Catholic High coach Tim Comeaux’s philosophy as he gets ready to take his high school junior varsity team and play about 20 games over the next month in metro league play under the banner of Blue Stream Services, which sponsor’s the team.

It’s not an overly complex philosophy, but it serves the CHS coach well — his previous Blue Stream teams have returned with a lot of experience to help lead Catholic High’s varsity baseball team into the playoffs for the past three years.

“We’re hoping to get in as many innings as possible for a whole lot of guys that didn’t have the opportunity to play varsity,” said Comeaux. “The good part is that our junior varsity got to play about 15 to 18 games this year. So playing baseball on the high school level for many of my players is not new, playing on the varsity level will be.”

To make sure that he has enough players this summer, Comeaux has 18 players on the roster, the CHS coach also brought up four eighth graders to play this summer, which he says is always an experience within itself.

“I don’t know if they will be successful on the field or in making the team next year but we felt that if we had to call up some people, who would it be,” said Comeaux. “But our purpose remains the same, we want to get as many people in as many innings as possible, so we’ll know who is ready to play next year.”

The CHS coach also doesn’t mind not having his entire team available if some of his players choose to play travel ball in the summer. All he wants is for his players to get as many innings in during this time because it helps them get better and subsequently helps the Catholic High varsity team get better.

In the recent past, Comeaux had his summer teams play in everything from Junior American Legion to Senior American Legion to Metro League, all with varying degrees of success but all with the purpose of making the players better.

This summer, Blue Stream will play in a league with Loreauville, Delcambre, Hanson, Assembly Christian and Ascension Episcopal. The team begins summer play Tuesday at Catholic High with a double-header starting at 4:30 p.m. against Loreauville and another game at 6:30 p.m. against Delcambre.

“Three of the six teams (CHS, Loreauville, Delcambre) will be in the same district next year so we won’t have any secrets,” said Comeaux. “We’re looking forward to it and it gives everybody an opportunity.”