The pitcher winds up, ready to pitch. The batter poises his bat, ready to hit the ball. A second of confusion costs him the swing, and he is struck out. The outcome of the game is often decided by this one moment, the weight of the score squarely on the pitcher’s shoulders. 

Sophomore Taylor Ward is one of the pitchers on the team. Ward has been playing baseball since he was four, and started pitching at age eight.

“The game is determined by whether you throw strikes or not,” Ward said. “The pressure’s on you.”

Ward is learning how to be a better player both on and off the field.

“If everyone plays together, we almost always win,” Ward said. “You can only control the things you can, and you just have to figure out the things you can’t.”

Fellow pitcher sophomore Tim Frances agrees with Ward.

“Next year, I hope to become more of a teammate,” Frances said. “Not just for myself.”

Frances has been playing baseball for nine years, and pitching for eight of those years.

“I love the feeling after you strike somebody out,” Frances said. “Baseball is not just a one-man game, it’s a cooperation of multiple people, you can’t do it by yourself.”

That cooperation has paid off this year as the team won 10 of their 13 non-district games.

“The season has gone really well,” junior Trey Taylor said. “We’re having a lot of success on and off the field, and we’re really starting to gel as a team.”

In district play, the team started strong winning the district opener 3-0 over Marble Falls. After losses to Cedar Park, Dripping Springs and Lake Travis in the first round, the team bounced back with a 4-0 win over Vandegrift. In the second round, the Raiders would win games against Cedar Park and Dripping Springs.

At the end of district play, the team ended up in a three-way tie for fourth place in the playoffs. To earn a playoff spot, the team would have to beat Vandegrift and Marble Falls in one day, April 28. In the first game, the team had 11 hits in the 10-3 win over the Vipers.

“It was awesome,” junior Robert Martinez said. “Beating them by so much, it felt really good.”

After the win, the varsity team took on Marble Falls at the Vandegrift field with little time between games. The Mustangs would put up nine runs, winning 9-5 to seal their place as the final playoff team.

“Even though we lost, we still came together as a team,” Martinez said. “It was a really good experience; we’ve been playing with the seniors for three years now.”