MVHS baseball on the upswing

The Mountain View High School varsity baseball team appears to have hit a breakthrough. After a disappointing last season and a great deal of turnover in coaching staff, the team has made major improvements and will be playing in the regional playoffs for the first time since 2010.

Last week, the varsity team nailed a 6-2 victory against Monta Vista High School, guaranteeing a home game to kick off the playoffs on Wednesday, May 18. The win also ended an already-positive season on a high note — the team finished 18-8-1. The varsity team ended its last season 5-24-1.

Some of the credit for this season’s success goes to the top. Last year, the athletic department hired Kris Mims as the interim coach for the varsity baseball team. His position became permanent around mid-March. Mims’s arrival comes at the tail-end of a several rocky years for the team, fraught with major turnover — the team has had four coaches over the last four years.

Mims said the coach turnover has been tough for the team, and that it’s a lot easier to improve when the coaching staff sticks around year-to-year.

“You need some stability at the top,” Mims said.

The strategy this season has been to work on defense and pitching, Mims said, and so far it seems to be working. The players have better team chemistry, Mims said, and have the lowest number of errors in the league.

Mims pointed out that many of the players on the varsity team –and even the junior varsity team — play well together because they’ve been playing baseball together for years in the Los Altos-Mountain View Pony baseball league.

Team chemistry also helps when you have some of the top performers in the league. Junior Jacob Orlov has the highest RBI (runs batted in) in the six-team league, which ranks him among the top CCS players. Tommy Cruz, also a junior, takes the top spot in the league for 25 runs this season, according to the high school sports website MaxPreps.

Senior Steve Schynert, a pitcher, has helped lead the team, and said his goal each game is to give players as much of an opportunity as possible to make plays while he’s on the mound. He said he’s been playing with many of the team members for a long time, and that the boost in performance this year has been astounding.

“It’s been insane, the difference in the level of play,” Schynert said.

The CCS playoffs game against San Mateo High School is set to start at Mountain View High School at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, May 18.