By all counts the Reed-Custer High School Summer Comets Varsity baseball team enjoyed a successful season.  The squad, comprised of next year's junior and senior class, finished with an 8-4 record.  Although winning is of major importance to the players, the real goal of the summer season for the coaches is more of an evaluative and instructional nature.

"The biggest draw back of the season," according to Head Coach Jerry Cougill, "was the number of rain outs we had.  We had 4 double headers either rained out or canceled by an opponent."

In all, 27 players participated on either the Varsity or Fr-So summer team.  Each team played each Monday, Wednesday and Friday during the month of June.

"We try to balance our summer season with the needs of our players and their families.  To be honest, we would prefer to play more games over a longer period during the summer.  We would get a lot more accomplished.  However, we share athletes with other sports and those teams are also doing things during the summer.  We have good cooperation in all sports and among our coaching staff, so we choose to limit our summer program to the June schedule," says Cougill.

"We went into the summer with four goals.  First, we needed to establish a pecking order among our pitching staff.  A real key for us in 2011 will be to find some depth in this area.  Behind Grant Van Haelst, who will be our ace, I felt Ryan Johnson really came to the forefront.  He is working hard to establish some off speed pitches and will carry a big load for us next year.  Filling out the top 4, based on what we saw this summer, are Alex Hagberg and Charlie Faletti," stated Cougill.

"A second goal of the summer season was to establish our infield for next year.  I feel we did that.  Steve Rosenburg played very solidly at shortstop and that will be huge for us.  I feel we should be in good hands there."  Jacob Porterfield will fill the bill at second base and Johnson will be at third.  Hagberg returns as a solid defender at first base.  Collin Persak and Ben Brandolino played well and will give us some options when some of the infield guys are on the mound."

"Our third goal of the summer was to emphasize the bunt game, which we did.  Dan Dillon really opened some eyes with his ability in the short game, but really everyone did pretty well in this area.  We have to continue this committment to the short game as we head into next season.

"Finally, we hoped to find some middle of the order run producers.  We were pretty strong there last year but some of our big offensive guys graduated.  Van Haelst, Dillon, Hagberg, Persak, Faletti and Rosenburg each showed promise and with continued improvement should be able to help us be competitive in 2011," said Cougill.

"I was really happy to see the progress of Brandolino and Jacob Benson," concluded Cougill.  "They both showed they are ready to step in and contribute next season.  Benson did an outstanding job patrolling the outfield and gives us much needed depth and flexibility.  Chase LeGrand recorded 2 saves for us and will be a part of our pitching staff.  All in all, we're excited to continue working with these guys.  They have shown a willingness to work hard and they are a good group of guys.  We'll continue to improve and get our team ready for next year."