Baseball: West Orange experiencing power surge on offense

WINTER GARDEN When Matt Coello, Chris Seise and Ethan Jones homered for the West Orange baseball team March 23 against The Benjamin School in an 11-1 win, it represented the 17th, 18th and 19th home runs — respectively — for the team this season.

Through 17 games, the Warriors (16-1) are averaging better than a home run per game and have a grand total of 77 extra-base hits.

So, in other words, head coach Jesse Marlo’s club is putting swinging the bat better than it has in years.

“It’s probably been a good five or six years … it’s been a while,” Marlo said, recalling the 2009 team that finished with a 30-2 record.

What’s more, the Warriors — who jumped from No. 13 to No. 7 in the nation in the latest USA Today rankings — are seeing production from nearly everyone that has picked up a bat this season. A total of 10 different players have homered and 15 have registered an extra-base hit.

The way junior Deandre Shelton explains it, good at-bats have been contagious this spring.

“When everybody is hitting well, and the way we are (beating) teams, everybody feels like they need to get their hits and stay aggressive,” Shelton said.

So far as home runs are concerned, senior Nate Schreckengost leads the Warriors with five — including having hit two home runs on two different occasions. 

Senior Kole Enright is second, with three home runs, and has a team-leading 14 total extra-base hits. Enright, who is the leadoff man for West Orange, has a whopping 10 doubles this season. The Stetson signee is trailed by senior Ethan Jones’ eight doubles and 10 total extra-base hits.

“I attribute a lot of (the team’s hitting success) just to the hard work they’ve put in off the field,” Marlo said, adding that many of the players have focused on the weight room outside of official team activities.

Marlo has coached the team since 2005 and has kept program records dating back to that season. The Warriors’ 19 home runs this spring is just one shy of the 20 home runs West Orange clubbed in 2011 and Schreckengost’s five home runs leave him just one shy of alumnus Mason Williams’ six home runs in 2010.

Schreckengost also can lay claim to the most impressive of the homer of the 19, with a shot against Lake Minneola that cleared some of the forestry beyond the right field wall at Heller Bros. Park.

“When he hit the ball above the trees, it was unreal,” Shelton said.

Contact Steven Ryzewski at [email protected].