ZEELAND, Mich. — Zeeland East baseball is rolling.
19 wins in their first 20 games.
The Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Association (MHSBCA) ranks the Chix seventh in the state in division one.
Cold Weather Bats has them 16th regardless of division.
Despite all that, this team is still hungry.
"We are always going to keep striving for more, obviously," senior pitcher and right fielder Easton Remick said. "We have that winning mentality all across our team. Everybody here wants to win all the time."
"One of the greatest things that I look for as a coach is watching guys succeed," 11th year Zeeland East head baseball coach Matt Sattler said. "It is what we do this for. It's not the wins and losses, it is watching the individual accomplishments along the way and the full team accomplishment when it all comes together and it has just been really a blessing to watch."
And Zeeland East is still a very young team with a strong junior class leading the way.
Last season the Chix won 26 games with eight sophomore playing, five starting full time.
"It was a confidence builder from last year because we had five sophomores starting, which is obviously a very young team," junior shortstop Charlie Lacny said. "I think we had one or two seniors that played a lot so coming into this year a lot of guys built experience last year which helped a lot this year to get our wins."
"We all have goals and aspirations, obviously, "Remick added. "We all worked our butt off in the offseason and it's obviously showing right now. With all the returner players, I think that 26 (wins) was a good season, but we wanted more."
More includes winning the OK Green conference, something they did as recently as two years ago, and winning a district championship, something that has eluded them for some time.
They have not won a district championship in baseball since Zeeland High School split into East and West, that was 17 years ago.
"I hope we can accomplish a district this year," Remick said. "I think we got the right guys, the right talent and everything this year and I hope that we can make a great playoff run."
"Not putting pressure on ourselves going into the district," Lacny added. "Just acting like it's a normal game because we've done really well on that against big pitchers and big arms."
The district tournament is still four weeks away, but to win it, Zeeland East will have to beat Zeeland West for a fourth time and maybe Hudsonville which is the only team it has lost to this season.
"I also think they are ready for anybody," Sattler said. "Often times you have teams that might be 'oh, we are a little afraid of this guy or that guy,' these guys want the best of everybody and they want to go compete and they want to go battle."
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