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Final season big for senior Ducks By Emily Grobe Long-time friends, teammates reminisce on past years When Taylor High School seniors Jake Farr, Chad David, Ryan Gonzales, Dalton Marek, Adam Barry and Cullen Pick played Pony baseball together, it was serious business, they said. A win offered bragging rights at school and ribbing privileges on the field. High school ball isn’t the same, though. “Now we are playing for our school,” David, who is considered the quiet one, said. “It’s for the whole City of Taylor, not just for ourselves,” Farr added. Even though the six are playing the game for more than just themselves, they remember when it was about who got to talk about winning the next day at school. The history shared by these six seniors, who grew up together and have joined each other on the diamond since Little League, is rich. “Do you remember that kid from Thrall who ran into the fence?” Pick asked, recalling when David hit a homerun against a Thrall Little League team. “The outfielder ran into the fence and knocked himself out,” David said with a laugh. There’s also “rocket-fire,” which junior Heath O’Banon says to Eric Brooks when he’s on the mound. “I don’t know what it means, but Heath and Eric played together and that’s what they say,” Farr said. “If it works, we do it. We just try to get it done.” Now the THS baseball team is on its way to the regional semifinals for the first time in six years. Their memories of high school have advanced with them, too. There’s the “bus band,” where the team plays air instruments to “The Boys are Back in Town” after every win; pretending to be one of the coaches to get onto a teammate; the time coach Will Janson accidentally hit Eric Camacho in the head with a baseball; and “Iron Man.” “Iron Man is funny,” Marek said. During the Rockdale game, Samuel Jirasek came off the mound after a rough inning. “(Coach Doug) Kuhl asked him, he said, ‘You only threw 80 pitches. Are you running out of gas?’ Sam said, ‘No coach. I got hit in the back. I’m not Iron Man.’ It was great,” Farr said. Having played together for so many years is a large part of this team’s success, according to Gonzales. “It’s amazing when we’re playing together, we come together and believe anything can happen,” he said. “We knew we’d go to the playoffs, but not past area.” For a brief time, late in the season, it looked as if the Ducks might not even make it past bi-district in the playoffs. After clinching a playoff spot early, the Ducks had lost possession of first place and found themselves in a playoff to determine second and third place in District 18-3A. “We were in a slump and we needed to try something new,“ Farr said. With injuries mounting and players out, Kuhl took advantage of the opportunity and turned out a different Taylor team in their next six games. The Ducks combined for 26 hits in their bi-district series against Lorena and swept the series in two games. They returned to the diamond in Lufkin May 8 and rocked Lufkin-Hudson, an expected contender for the state title, in two run-ruled games. At that point, Kuhl felt certain his team’s skid was over. “It’s looking that way isn’t it?” Kuhl said. “Everybody is just playing baseball like they know how to play,” Pick said. Part of it may be the superstitions and rituals the seniors, their friends and family perpetuate. There’s the “2-2-2.” Whenever there are two strikes, two balls and two outs, each Duck will rub the bill of his hat twice, lift it up or take it off, put it back on and repeat it twice — all except David. “Chad’s not allowed to do it because he will mess it up,” Farr said. “He does it too nonchalantly.” David’s father provides his own ritual, wearing a particular shirt — a red Hawaiian button-up — to every game, even consecutive games. “It hasn’t been washed all of the playoffs,” David said, laughing. Gonzales has to sleep in his jersey the night before the game and has to flush the toilet twice in the restroom at the game location. Barry’s ritual is to not have a ritual. Farr eats a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before each game; Marek has to wear his green or white game socks on the same feet as the game before; David wears cloverleaf boxers for luck. “I didn’t wear them last Thursday and we lost,” he said. Taylor coach Kenny Cmerek has to walk the field before every game, inspecting the fence, and Brooks has to put new tape on his shoes, which are coming apart at the soles, before every game. “He can’t buy new ones now that we are this far,” Gonzales said. The seniors, who are prepping to face Giddings in Bryan Thursday, are hoping they will make it four more rounds — all the way to Disch Falk Field in Austin — but said they are happy to have gone this far. “We hope we made an impact on our program,” Farr said.
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