North Medford - Are 6A Schools that good?

It was quite a treat watching #3 rated North Medford play North Eugene at Swede Johnson stadium on Monday. The Black Tornado showed off their hitting prowess and some spectacular defense.
And to think that we didn't get to see North Medford's two best pitchers - Matt Mauer (Pepperdine next year) and Bradey Shipley (Western Nevada Junior College).
North Medford's catcher Colin Sowers led off the game by driving a first pitch fastball over the Red Lion sign in left center. The dinger wasn't a towering shot barely clearing the fence. It was more of a liner. The hard hit ball was a foreshadowing of the 18 hits to follow. Most of the Tornado hits were hit on the button. The most noticeable consistency of the Medford batters was that they were rarely fooled by off speed pitches. I can only recall three or four times where the batters upper body was out ahead of their legs. It didn't matter what type of pitcher the Highlanders threw - Moore, Mills or Clayton - the batters just stayed back and attacked the ball at the last moment possible and with tremendous explosion.
Defensively, the Medford shortstop put on a show. He played so deep and covered so much ground that I think they could have played without the third baseman. He made two throws from deep behind the third baseman and then topped off his performance by going well behind second base and flipping the ball, back handed, to second for a force.
The Medford catcher, Colin Sowers, not only made a point of not throwing him a fastball in his zone, but he showed he was a wily catcher by setting up a Highlander on first by hiding behind a left handed batter for a few pitches. The Highlander kept creeping off a little more and then Sowers picked him with a nice backdoor move behind the batter.
Medford's Michael Bradshaw shut out the Highlanders in a complete game victory. The good news for the Southwest conference is that Bradshaw and the other two pitching aces are all seniors.
So, are the 6A schools that much better than 5A schools? For the most part yes. The obvious reason is that they have so many more bodies in their school to choose from. The OSAA has North Eugene with an average daily membership of 938 students and North Medford at 1665. Imagine if Highlander coach Nicholsen could look down the hallway and choose from 840 boys instead of 470. There would be a lot more juniors and seniors on the team, meaning a bigger, stronger, faster team.
It's tempting to say that the teams down south just play a lot more ball than Eugene teams. But with fall ball and legion and kids being invited to Area Code games, the Eugene schools have players who get in a lot of baseball. Notably, since the big boys were split off four seasons ago, just three of twelve state semifinalists were from down south. And from 2000 to 2006, when there were 80 teams in the upper 4A Division, only one SOC team made the state finals. So I go back to larger student bodies as the reason for success - along with a great program and conditioning.
So how do the smaller schools compete when they merge with the 6A schools next year? Well, pitching and defense are the classic neutralizers in baseball. One good ace on a staff can win half of a team's league games. Just look at the teams going to state from the current MWL and you'll find that with the exception of one starting pitcher, the pitchers rarely walk anyone. (By the way, North Medford got to Andrew Moore for two in the first inning, but Moore settled down in the second and might have had a good outing if he would have been allowed to go more than two innings.)
Developing a good hitting team seems to be more difficult than putting together a good defense. I believe this is where focus and conditioning come into play. Good hitters focus on every pitch, even in practice. Focus is a habit, and good habits have to be practiced. Focus needs to be automatic in gametime. Good hitters believe a sharply hit ball - a line drive preferably, or a blistering grounder- are the only acceptable hits, even in the cage. Some coaches preach almost any grounder as okay, but grounders weren't going to get through the North Medford infield.
Conditioning has changed tremendously in the last 15 years. I remember when the Churchill football team was running the double wing. The entire team worked out relentlessly and they looked like they would do well in any street fight. The next team to take conditioning to another level was when Marty Johnson took over the Sheldon football program. Amazingly, the Irish have maintained their weightroom/plyometrics attitude for over ten years. Other teams have had spurts in different programs. A few years ago, the Thurston basketball team would have looked like NBA thugs is they had just added some tats. The bottom line is, if you want to compete with the big boys, you better have a great 'core' conditioning program. In baseball, you need to add the arm muscles, too. Bigger - stronger - faster.
North Eugene hosts The Dalles-Wahtonka Friday. The Indians-Eagles made the playoffs in both football and basketball, but were eliminated early. So they have players with playoff experience and they will hungry to advance. For the most part, the Indians-Eagles have played good D, the exception being getting blown out by second ranked Pendleton. (Interresting hyphenated school and mascot names. If Sheldon and North Eugene merged, would they be called the Irish-Highlanders, or just the Kilts?)
Here's a challenge to North Eugene. Friday's playoff game is the last chance for a MWL team to advance past the sub round into the group of sixteen under the current playoff model. The OSAA four year classification experiment is over after spring season and next year begins the 'Hybrid' leagues and the 'Everybody goes to the Playoffs' format. Let's get three teams into the Sweet Sixteen!