By Chris Parker
Greenwood has a new head coach in Chris Meza this season. While this will be his first time as a head coach, he has a lot of experience as an assistant coach in the area. He previously has served as an assistant coach at Hillcrest, Parkview and Springfield Catholic.
“I have been an assistant for a long time under a lot of great mentors,” Meza said. “I just felt I was ready, and Greenwood was a school that seemed excited to have me.”
He inherits a team returning five starters from last season’s 12-win district championship team.
“The overall expectation is to build on the success from the last two seasons,” Meza said. “Year One made it to a district game and lost then last year winning districts and advancing. We want to build this program up to where a lot of the other sports are at our school in terms of success.”
Seniors Carson Little, Kennison Zarechi and Chance Rose will be team leaders. All three along with Cooper Morgan, Henry Haynes and Coen Little will be relied upon for innings on the mound.
Sophomore Tayven Zarechi will be behind the plate catching. Morgan (first base), Sam Schneider (second base), Little (third base) and Kennison Zarechi (shortstop) will be on the infield.
Haynes and Rose will hold down left field and center field with Kai Schafer, Tay Lee, Steven Duran and Jesse Davies all in the running for time in right field.
“Our strengths will be hopefully offense and pitching. We are having some guys play new positions defensively this year which will come with some learning curves. I believe my staff and I will get the boys where they need to be in the system that we run to succeed and take on any challenges presented,” Meza said. “Defensively because we are having a lot of guys try new positions out and that is coming from me trying to structure out our lineup to what I believe gives us the best chance to win games. I think strike throwing consistency will be key. I think we have a lot of talented arms on the mound but getting them to focus in and not be overwhelmed when a base hit is given up or walk for us to be able to overcome that and lock back in will be a key feature for us to work on. Also not trying to do too much fill the strike zone up and force as much weak contact as possible.”
Greenwood opens the season on Mar. 19 at Walnut Grove.
