Rattlers rally around each other for 3-game winning streak

San Marcos closed out the Comal Tournament on a high note as the Rattlers finished tournament play on three-game winning streak to improve their record to 5-6-1 overall.

Head coach Bryan Webb was happy to see his team rebound after a rough week following the home opener loss to Kerrville Tivy.

“We got better as the weekend went on,” Webb said. “We got some key guys back in the lineup that lifted us up and gave us a spark. … it seemed we stopped stumping our foot in the ground and started making the plays that we needed to make to roll off three wins in a row.”

Despite losing the first two games, New Braunfels Canyon and Dripping Springs, the Rattlers rallied off three straight wins to close out the weekend as San Marcos starts district play this week.

The Tivy loss turned out to be a critical moment for San Marcos as it allowed the team to come together as a group with emotions running high.

“Everyone just started bonding right there (after the Tivy game),” Webb said. “There were some things that needed to be said in a locker room setting that had to be talked out. As a team, we needed to work it out and took a couple of days with some spark plugs to just go … families have problems sometimes and you just need to work it out.”

Part of the process was simply refocusing while both players and coaches did self evaluation with one another.

“It was time to re-evaluate everything that we were doing at the moment,” Webb said. “It wasn’t clicking and I even re-evaluated myself as a coach. The players re-evaluate themselves, their roles, and what their thought process was. We all got up and discussed what it meant, what our goals were, and re-established ourselves while also refocusing.”

But perhaps the biggest turning point in the tournament was the final game against the Davenport Wolves.

With the Rattlers trailing 3-0 to the Wolves in the top of the fourth inning, San Marcos scored 10 unanswered runs to take a commanding 10-3 lead.

As Webb explained, the plan was never about shaking up the formula but rather making the small adjustments.

“We are not going to change anything but rather we just tweaked some things,” Webb said. “Sometimes it takes a pitch or a hit to turn things. What turned our momentum was (Sunray) Estrada hitting that double against Davenport that cleared the bases after being down 3-0. You could feel the momentum switch to our side.”

But the tournament also saw San Marcos change their mentality as well.

“It was good to see the emotion come out of our guys,” Webb said. “They were playing some fired up ball. When an error happened, we didn’t put our head down but rather we went to the next pitch mentality. It showed that the self reevaluation paid off for both the players and the coaches.”

This week the Rattlers will kick off district against the East Central Hornets before starting tournament play at the San Marcos Baseball Tournament.

Despite being moved south during realignment, Webb knows every game will be a dogfight.

“I never lose sight of them even if we go north or south,” Webb said. “You might be better than them or equal but you are going to play seven innings. Everyone is capable of beating everyone at any time. Everybody is competitive and is well coached so the difference in district play is eliminating as many mistakes as you can.”

San Marcos travels to East Central before the time of press.

The Rattlers will kick off the San Marcos Tournament on Thursday playing Harker Heights at 4:30 p.m. and Norman High School out of Oklahoma at 7 p.m.

Friday will see San Marcos play old rival Seguin at 4:30 p.m. and Boerne High School at 7 p.m.

Rattlers will close out the tournament against Norman High School Saturday at 11 a.m.

cmcwilliams @sanmarcosrecord.com Twitter: @ColtonBMc