Eagle Baseball Team to Open Season Against Formidable Foes
In his first year as head coach of the Eagle baseball team, Tevin Cadola is looking forward to the challenge of starting the season against two of the top teams in the state.
The Eagles are scheduled to open at Skyline in San Bruno Friday and Saturday and at San Mateo Sunday and Monday.
Cadola, a 2014 graduate of Yreka High School, was the Eagles’ pitching coach the past two seasons. He has a 2022-23 roster of 36 players with about equal parts returning sophomores and freshmen. He said the team’s strengths include “good strike throwers on the mound” and “quite a bit of speed; we plan to get things going on the bases.”
While some coaches prefer to start the season against lower level competition, Cadola said he wants the Eagles to face some of the best, “to showcase their maturity and handle adversity. I ask them to make adjustments every day, and I do the same. I give guys opportunities, make them earn their role. Winning their job showed me who I can trust. Now they need to prove they can do it against another opponent… I tell our guys the team that wins is the team that plays the best that day. I believe we will give everybody on our schedule a run for their money.”
Cadola is being assisted by former Eagle head coach Nick Thielman and Russell Morena. Thielman is working with the offense and coaching third base. Morena is working with the outfielders and coaching first base.
After the Eagles won just 9 games last year, Cadola sees this season as the start of “a total rebuild.” He said he’s looking for “hard-nosed grinders,“ competitors who are willing to work hard and overcome adversity, including inclement weather.
“I like our returners,” Cadola said. “We’re primarily on the same page. They understand how I expect them to play. They’ve made my life much easier and hold themselves to a high standard. The freshmen can see the returners go about their business as I ask them to. The foundation has been set… If you buy in, I’ll ride with you until the wheels fall off.”
The weather was definitely an obstacle for much of January, and the Eagles had to practice in the gym some days with the field under snow or water.
Baseball, Cadola says, “is a game built on failures… I tell our players every day to work on getting one percent better, controlling the controllables. I have them write out the things they can and can’t control. A lot of them are from places where the weather isn’t as much of a factor. You can’t control the weather, but you can control the clothing you wear, your mindset for a cold game, how you prepare to handle the elements. You can’t control umpires, but we can control how we handle it. I want to plant seeds that will grow and develop roots of college baseball players.”
Starting pitchers on the roster include sophomore righthanders Carson Jones and Callan Vreim from Eugene, Ore., sophomore lefthander Dante Bravo from Kingman, Ariz., and Geoffrey Allen, a freshman righthander from Stockton.
Cadola said Jones “has been in the fire many times” after starting every weekend for the Eagles last spring. Bravo and Vreim are two-way players who both also play first base and will bat in the middle of the Eagles’ lineup.
Sophomore righthander Jakob Kinney was last year’s closer but didn’t get a lot of opportunities in that role. Cadola is looking to use Kinney in middle relief along with sophomore righthander Austin Jaramillo.
Another returning pitcher is lefty Kameron Saucedo, who has been with the team longer than any other player and “understands his role to the fullest,” Cadola said.
Other returning sophomores include:
Ryelen Samson, a “speedy and agile” outfielder who will play centerfield or leftfield and “can hit.”
Kekai Ferguson of Mount Shasta, who returns to second base. Cadola said Ferguson was hitting in the mid-.300s when he suffered a season-ending knee injury about five weeks into the season last spring. “He puts the ball in play and plays the game the right way.”
Dewitt Nunery, an outfielder from Sacramento who the coach praised for the work he put in on making swing adjustments since last year.
Devyn Engdahl, a lefthanded hitter from Cody, Wyo., who has moved from catcher to third base this year but is also expected to see some time behind the plate. “He sprays the ball to all fields and will run through a wall for you,” Cadola said.
Blake Boyes from Fall River High School in McArthur saw playing time at third base last year and has been “swinging the stick pretty well” in the lead-up to this spring.
The Eagles’ starting catcher going into the season is sophomore Connor Jones from Eugene.
The list of sophomores on the roster includes infielder William Gwyn from Portland; outfielder/pitcher Caughlin Shults from Grants Pass; pitchers Juanluis Jimenez from Hood River, Zakk Gibbons of Yreka, Coleton Padilla of Kingman, and Bryson Estrella of Eugene.
The 18 freshmen on the roster include starting shortstop Dylann Battye from Canada and:
Infielders Giovanni Sanchez of Las Vegas, Taiyo Kurosawa from Mount Shasta, Rylan Taylor of Vancouver, Ashton Durler from Grants Pass, Jase Rothenberger from Bonney Lake, Wash., and Drew Raeble from Klamath Falls;
Outfielders Aidan Hermansen from Vancouver, Kadin Bolanos of Klamath Falls, Michael Santos from Citrus Heights, Traber Burns from Ashland, and Jarrod Keen of Weed;
Catcher Nathaniel Cook of Eugene;
Pitchers Geoffrey Allen, Gabriel San Juan of Las Vegas, Fernando Avalos of Sacramento, Conner Stark of Elmira, and Logan Tikka of Vancouver.
Cadola knows the Golden Valley Conference well and expects it to look similar to the recent past with Butte, Feather River and Lassen as the teams to beat. The Eagles are scheduled to open GVC play and play their first home games of the season against Feather River March 3rd and 4th.
A league MVP pitcher for both Yreka High School and Butte College, Cadola was a two-year starter at San Jose State, then spent a season as a relief pitcher for the San Rafael Pacific pro independent ball team in 2019.
As a coach, he sees himself as “a hybrid blend” of the coaches he played for and respected. He said he likes to create competition among his players, because “having somebody nipping at their heels makes them practice harder. I want them to get comfortable being uncomfortable.” And he hopes to “build lifelong relationships with players; they can use me for more than being a good baseball player. They can lean on me for future guidance.”
By Steve Gerace