San Marcos tests underclassmen in win over Davenport

Everything San Marcos does now is in preparation for the postseason. 

The Rattlers played games on consecutive days, giving them limited time for rest. Saturday’s starting lineup featured none of the team’s upperclassmen, forcing its young core to carry the bulk of the work. Twelve different batters took swings. Five different pitchers took the mound. Even juggling the lineup, San Marcos found a way to beat San Antonio Davenport, 6-4, and move their win streak to six. 

All of the players understand why their coach has the season lined up the way it is and it hasn’t affected the team’s fatigue at all. In fact, this season the team is 16-4-1 in back-to-backs or doubleheaders. These games just happen to be around the most important time of the season. 

“We all feel good. Coach Webb schedules these games to make it feel like playoffs,” sophomore pitcher Stephen Wilder said. “We go play at night and then come back the next day and play again. That’s why he scheduled these games.”

They’ve gotten off to a much quicker start as of recently, scoring four runs in the first inning in two of their last three games. Sophomore Gavin Gomez said “the team is down four when they step off the bus.” That’s the aid that has propelled San Marcos in its winning streak. 

San Marcos (19-7-2, 5-5 district) never trailed against Davenport (13-3-1, 3-5) after the top of the first inning, holding firm with a 6-1 lead until the sixth. The Wolves scored one, cutting the lead to four. 

In the last two innings, the hosts survived a scare as a pair or errors allowed two runs to score. But sophomore pitcher Major Pellien came in relief and kept the visitors from bringing anymore across home plate.

That was just one of the underclassmen leveling up on in-game experience. The team had five hits from five players, each one of them resulting in an RBI. All of San Marcos’ damage was done in the first three innings, where they scored all six of their runs. Everybody has to be ready, when the postseason comes around.

“My pregame speech was, ‘If the situation presents itself in these next four ballgames, are you ready to go in and do the job as a starter?’ And you know, we found out some information today. We know who’s ready to go and who’s not quite ready to go, so it was good to see,” head coach Bryan Webb said. “These games, you like just to see these kids in tough situations, non-district games and you schedule guys that you know that are going to compete. It was good to see our kids but in a very tough situation out there at the end of the ballgame and be able to handle it. So that’s the good thing about these non-district games.”

San Marcos returns to district play after its one-game hiatus to take on one of the district’s top dogs in Austin Bowie (20-3-1, 9-1) on Tuesday at 7 p.m. A win in any of the last four regular season games would mark San Marcos’ first 20-win season since 2016. 

“Well, 20 wins in any season is big in Texas high school baseball. So it’s a mark that only a few teams did this year,” Webb said.  “Our goal is to find a place in the tournament and get in there so if that’s 22 or 24 wins, whatever we got to do to get in there, that’s what we’re gonna do.”