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Snyder sophomore Jerek Pena fielded a groundball during a senior league practice last year. Pena is one of many players who lost both their high school baseball and senior league all-star seasons. -
Sophomore Bryce Ford hit an RBI double in an all-star game last year. Ford played catcher for both the Snyder High School and the Snyder Senior League teams.
The world is slowly beginning to re-open and Texas has taken steps toward returning to normalcy after shutting down to fight the spread of COVID-19.
Governor Greg Abbott’s Monday announcement said sports could resume on May 31, which is welcome news for leagues such as Snyder Little League. However, returning members of the Snyder Senior League team find themselves without one last shot at the Senior League World Series.
The team, primarily composed of Snyder High School freshmen and sophomores who were just one win away from the Senior League World Series in 2019, had hopes of going all the way in 2020. But with the cancellation of the Little League World Series, those hopes were crushed.
“It was disappointing,” Snyder Little League president and coach of the senior league team Johnny Pena said. “We had most of them coming back just for a chance at the World Series. Obviously, that’s not going to happen now.”
Pena has been coaching the team since they were kids and was at the helm when they reached the state tournament in the Major League division, the first time a Snyder Little League team had done so in more than 20 years. Pena said he couldn’t help but feel like this year was their best chance to reach the World Series.
“Being in the championship game last year, all you thought about was how you were so close. On the five-hour drive back, we said ‘hey, we still have another year,”’ he said. “Watching the boys mature on the high school level, everything was coming together for them. I had high hopes for them, just because they had improved so much from last year. I saw them hang with those 18-year olds at the high school level and I know what they could have done this year.”
Pena’s oldest son, Jerek, is a shortstop and pitcher for his dad’s team and like most of the members of the team, lost both a year of high school baseball and his Senior League All-Star season to the pandemic.
“It was kind of tough because we knew this was our last chance to make it all the way,” he said. “It would have been pretty cool to play with them one more time.”
Bryce Ford, the team’s primary catcher and one of their bigger bats, felt the same way.
“I was pretty disappointed because most of us were coming back,” he said. “We had that same connection. You lose some of it over time, through football and the long period before baseball season and we had just started getting that back. I had just started thinking about potentially going back and trying to go to the World Series again, so I was real excited.”
Despite the disappointment, Ford said there is something he and his teammates can learn from this situation.
“The thing I have taken away and I think we all can is not taking things for granted,” he said. “Don’t let your chances go by. Take your shots when you can. I think we have all learned that anything can happen. I know that I am going to give it everything I’ve got to everything I do from now on. This year really opened my eyes to how quickly things can change.”
This isn’t the end of the road for this group of ball-players, however.
Most still have two to three years of eligibility at the high school level and while they can’t reach the World Series, a state title is still a solid goal to strive for.