Archive: Sports

The first couple of weeks of travel baseball for the Lansing boys U12 team has gone very well.  The team's offensive bats and base running led by Danny, Jesse, Dominic, and Jacob, scored 67 runs in the first four games.  The solid pitching of twelve different players and the overwhelming defense held Lansing's opponents to just ten runs. 

On the offensive side, the teams’ batting average is 0.593 and their OBP (On Base Percentage) is 0.697. (These averages were created from the over 60 hits.)  They have hit three home runs (HR); one each from Danny, Nick and one grand slam from Peter.  Jake and Luke aided the pitchers by hitting base clearing triples. 

Dominic, Nick, Jake and Jared added to the collection of hits, runs and RBI’s (Runs Batted In) by line driving a total of five doubles.  Over 50 singles were hit by the team.  Players like Michael, Sean, Chris, and Tanner are all adding to the overall success of Lansing U12 Team. The Hitting coach, Greg Eastman, deserves a portion of credit for the players doing so well at bat.  He has certainly developed the team into a force at the plate and on the bases.


Defensively the boys are very solid.  Even though the team only has nine players on the field at any given time, it seems like they always have all 17.  A few innings required less than 15 pitches to clear the side including several quality innings of pitching from Corbin, Eric, Josh, Jesse, Tanner, Chris, and Dominic.  The pitchers, coached by Dan Atkins, are relaxed and confident that if the batter happens to make contact with the ball, Lansing's defense will make a great play.  John Winslow has taken the catchers of the team to a whole new level.

 Luke, Danny, Jared, Craig, and Lansing have been walls behind home plate and have picked off several runners as they attempt to steal a base.  All of the boys are working together; helping, teaching, cheering on and backing up one another.

The team started out with a wide span of ability levels.  With three practices and four games, the ability span between the more skilled player and the up and coming players has been reduced to nearly unnoticeable.  They have 17 highly motivated kids, three full-time coaches, several part-time coaches, a great group of parents, and great staff at The Lansing Parks and Recreation department to form one fun, educational, and competitive team.

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