{"id":30091,"date":"2017-05-23T15:22:03","date_gmt":"2017-05-23T22:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/jdhs-tmhs-baseball-seniors-recognized\/"},"modified":"2017-05-23T15:22:03","modified_gmt":"2017-05-23T22:22:03","slug":"jdhs-tmhs-baseball-seniors-recognized","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/sports\/jdhs-tmhs-baseball-seniors-recognized\/","title":{"rendered":"JDHS, TMHS baseball seniors recognized"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Juneau-Douglas High School baseball team hosted senior night Saturday afternoon at Adair-Kennedy Field. This year, the Crimson Bears graduate six seniors \u2014 half of whom have already been through one this year. Gavin Murphy, Niko Hebert and Quin Gist all wrapped up their careers with the JDHS hockey team several months ago. The three other seniors moving on from the baseball program include Bryce Swofford, Jack Harvey and Jade McCormick.<\/p>\n

The Empire asked each to reflect on their playing days before a recent practice at Adair-Kennedy Field.<\/p>\n

Juneau Empire: What have you enjoyed about being a Crimson Bear?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jack Harvey<\/strong>: Probably being able to spend a lot of time with my friends and getting to know them better. Just getting better as players, seeing each other grow.<\/p>\n

Gavin Murphy<\/strong>: How talented of a team we\u2019ve always been. That\u2019s probably it. It\u2019s really fun playing with all of these guys and most of us play hockey, too, so it\u2019s just everyone in the pack follows (each other).<\/p>\n

Quin Gist<\/strong>: Just as a program, we\u2019ve always been a tough out, we\u2019ve always been battlers and grinders. We\u2019ve always pushing the pace for other teams. They\u2019re always wanting to beat us, and it\u2019s just nice to have that going for us. It\u2019s nice to have that confidence and usually we\u2019re one of the more competitive teams. It\u2019s just made me a harder worker.<\/p>\n

Niko Hebert<\/strong>: I\u2019ve enjoyed a lot of the teamwork and coming together with longtime friends.<\/p>\n

Bryce Swofford<\/strong>: Getting to hang out with my friends; we\u2019ve had a lot of success over the years. I\u2019ve definitely made a lot of new friends through the upperclassmen.<\/p>\n

Jade McCormick<\/strong>: Learning new things with them in different situations and scenarios.<\/p>\n

JE: What\u2019s one of the memories you have of playing for JDHS?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Harvey<\/strong>: Honestly, last year because we didn\u2019t make it to state and losing (in regionals) with the team that we had was really a lot of motivation for this year.<\/p>\n

Murphy<\/strong>: Probably the first game <\/a>against Sitka (this season) because that\u2019s probably one of the sketchiest games I\u2019ve been in.<\/p>\n

Gist<\/strong>: The 15-inning game <\/a>my freshman year in Sitka was pretty awesome.<\/p>\n

Hebert<\/strong>: My greatest memory would be playing in the state tournament my freshman year. We had a lot of great players on the team.<\/p>\n

Swofford<\/strong>: Freshman year we had a big game <\/a>against South (Anchorage). That was pretty crazy. I got to start (as pitcher) at the first round of the state tournament.<\/p>\n

McCormick<\/strong>: One time, one of our guys just stuck his hand out. He was up to bat, and he just stuck his hand out and caught the pitch with his bare hand. It was kind of like, \u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d So that was kind of funny.<\/p>\n

JE: What have you enjoyed about working with the coaching staff?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Harvey<\/strong>: Our coaches have a lot of experience with the game, so it\u2019s pretty easy to learn from them. They know what they\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n

Murphy<\/strong>: They have a lot of experience \u2014 but they also bring a lot of entertainment to the team. It\u2019s just fun all-around; you want to be here everyday.<\/p>\n

Gist<\/strong>: We have a really close bond. \u2026 They are always motivating us to try new stuff and push ourselves. Sometimes we argue and bicker, but at the end of the day, they are looking out for us and they have the best interest for us.<\/p>\n

Hebert<\/strong>: So far they\u2019ve just been really easy to work with. A lot of coaches are really knowledgeable about baseball. It\u2019s been great.<\/p>\n

Swofford<\/strong>: Coach (Will) Race has been more of a friend to me than a coach, I would say. He\u2019s helped me in the off season whenever I want to lift or go to the field and hit; he\u2019s always there for me.<\/p>\n

McCormick<\/strong>: Helping me with the little things, the mechanics.<\/p>\n

Thunder Mountain High School<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unlike JDHS, the Thunder Mountain High School baseball team ended their regular season on the road in Sitka. The Falcons celebrated their senor night over two weeks ago. This year\u2019s seniors include Zeb Storie, Riley Olsen, Franklin San Nicolas, Philip Wall and Owen Swanton.<\/p>\n

JE: What have you enjoyed about being a Falcon?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zeb <\/strong>Storie<\/strong>: This year in particular has been just playing with my little brother, who\u2019s a freshman and he starts. So it\u2019s pretty cool being able to play with your younger brother.<\/p>\n

Riley Olsen<\/strong>: When I started I was not very good. I\u2019ve improved every year and I\u2019ve enjoyed that. Thanks to Joe Tompkins, I\u2019ve learned how to hit actually, so that\u2019s been nice.<\/p>\n

Philip Wall<\/strong>: There\u2019s the aspect of team that I\u2019m definitely going to miss. I have\u2019t been here all four years, but the three years I have been here I\u2019ve grown into that aspect of it even though I will be playing after high school.<\/p>\n

Franklin San Nicolas<\/strong>: It just feels good to be back with all the people that I used to play baseball with \u2014 good environment with good coaches.<\/p>\n

JE: What\u2019s one of the memories you have of playing for TMHS?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Storie<\/strong>: How young we were as a team at the beginning of the year. It\u2019s noticeable how we\u2019ve grown throughout the whole year.<\/p>\n

Olsen<\/strong>: Freshman year, we traveled to Craig and I had a lot of fun doing that. We went with JV and it was just a good time.<\/p>\n

JE: What have you enjoyed about working with the coaching staff?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Storie<\/strong>: They always provide the time and resources to let me enhance my game as much as possible. I\u2019ll always respect them for that.<\/p>\n

Olsen<\/strong>: They mostly focus on my hitting because I\u2019ve never been good at hitting but this year I finally started hitting the ball so it\u2019s been nice they helped me with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wall<\/strong>: No other coaches compare when it comes to the time and money they\u2019ve spent into the program. When I was in sophomore and junior year I would just call (Joe) up and he would just go wherever. It\u2019s a luxury to have coaches who are so free and willing to help.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2022 Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nolin.ainsworth@juneauempire.com.<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Juneau-Douglas High School baseball team hosted senior night Saturday afternoon at Adair-Kennedy Field. This year, the Crimson Bears graduate six seniors \u2014 half of whom have already been through one this year. Gavin Murphy, Niko Hebert and Quin Gist all wrapped up their careers with the JDHS hockey team several months ago. The three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":30092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-30091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30091"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=30091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}