O'Connor (Helotes) baseball coach David Collenback didn't just need an alarm clock. He needed a drum set to wake up his team last week in the Class 5A area playoffs against Reagan.
The Panthers, who averaged nearly 10 runs per game, had scored just two runs in their previous three games before exploding for 21 in a doubleheader sweep at Blossom Athletic Center.
David Collenback, O'Connor coach
Courtesy photo
O'Connor scored wins of 9-6 and 12-6 to move into Friday's regional quarterfinals against King (Corpus Christi). The Panthers are now 29-6-2 and hope to surpass last year's 29-win total in the best-of-three series.
Collenback has won 161 games as coach of O'Connor the last seven seasons.
For it, he's been named the San Antonio High Yield Coach of the Week presented by Capital One Bank.
"We've hit the ball all year," Collenback told the
San Antonio Express-News following Saturday's sweep. "All of a sudden the bottom fell out, but we just kind of regained our old form and it couldn't have happened at a better time."
Mark Ecker led a 13-hit attack in the opener, while
Jose Rodriguez,
Justin Garcia and
Kent Corso had two hits each.
Daniel Cruz, Ecker, Corso and
Billy Craft each drove in two runs.
In the nightcap, Rodriguez and Garcia had three hits apiece as once again the Panthers exploded for 13 hits. Rodriguez had a double, triple and three RBIs.
Garcia won both games in relief, scattering six hits in 10 innings of work. He struck out six.
Garcia had a simple explanation for the team's sudden awakening with the bat.
"We have prom tonight and we told ourselves we weren't going to go to the prom sad," Garcia told the Express-News reporter Raul Dominguez.
