Daily Pilot High School Male Athlete of the Week: Danner excelling for Oilers
When Hagen Danner came to Huntington Beach High as a freshman, Coach Benji Medure said the 14-year-old felt like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. He had to live up to the hype of being Hagen Danner.
At age 12, Danner led Ocean View to the Little League World Series title. Two years later, the summer before he entered high school, Danner received an offer from UCLA.
By the time Danner played baseball for the Oilers, in the spring of 2014, he was 15. Like any freshman on varsity, there were growing pains.
“His approach was he wanted to hit .800, and he couldn’t understand when he got out. He didn’t understand when people actually made contact with his fastball,” Medure said. “He would come in the dugout and fire his glove up against the door, or he would slam his helmet down. It would go into the next at-bat, or it would go into the next inning on the mound.”
Danner has matured since his freshman year. One of the things he prides himself on is his demeanor.
“I want people to not be able to tell if I’m doing bad or if I’m doing good,” Danner said.
The look on Danner’s face during his senior year gives it away. He is smiling, having fun and winning.
Danner has the Oilers off to a 6-0 start. He is hitting and pitching, just as he wanted to as a freshman.
Danner is batting .563 with four home runs, 11 runs batted in and two doubles. On the mound, he is 2-0 with 18 strikeouts in 11 innings.
The right-hander’s best overall performance came in a 7-2 win against Orange Lutheran, the top-ranked team in the country at the time by PerfectGame.org, on March 4. While his six-inning stint in which he struck out six and allowed two runs on six hits while walking one impressed, Medure liked how Danner acted.
“He was coming in between innings and making jokes,” said Medure of Danner, who also went three for three with two home runs and four RBIs. “He was loose. It translated into a great game for him.”
Greatness is what many expected from Danner ever since he was in elementary school.
Medure watched Danner as a fourth-grader during a camp he and Rich Amaral, a former Estancia High standout and major-league utility man, ran together at Ocean View Little League.
“I remember Rich saying, ‘I would offer him a college scholarship right now,’” Medure said.
College might not even be an option for Danner, who is a pitcher and catcher.
He signed with UCLA, but many project the 6-foot-2, 195-pound Danner to go in the first round of the Major League Baseball Draft on June 12. Danner’s fastball has hit 97 mph this year, and the pitch usually ranges from 92-95.
“If I go in the first round, I’ll most likely pursue professional baseball,” said Danner, who is hearing that he will get picked anywhere from the middle of the first round toward the end of it. “It’s got to be life-changing.”
As to whether Danner wants to pitch or catch as a pro, he said he has not decided. He’s doing both with the Oilers at a high level, and he’s succeeded in those positions with the U.S. under-18 team the last two years.
Danner helped the Americans win the gold medal at the COPABE Pan American “AAA” Championships in Mexico last year and at the World Baseball Softball Confederation World Cup in Japan in 2015.
The latest international experience in Monterrey, Mexico, was all baseball for Danner and his teammates.
“We had to stay in the hotel. We couldn’t really go anywhere,” said Danner, adding that it was too dangerous to go outside, but at no time was he concerned. “All we worried about was the baseball part.”
Beside winning gold, Danner said on his last day in Mexico that he ate the best steak of his life.
“They put it on like a salt block and they cooked it on salt block, so it makes the whole steak salty, and it was just perfect,” Danner said.
Not everything has to be perfect to Danner, and that is a good thing.
No longer does he easily get frustrated as he did as a freshman. Danner’s body language has changed for the better, and Medure said he, Danner’s parents, Scott and Lisa, and his friends helped.
“We all kind of banded together and just let him know that it’s a fun game,” said Medure, who also coached Danner’s older brother, Garrick, a 2011 graduate. “When he’s smiling and having fun playing, he’s at his best.”
As for who is the best player Medure has coached during his time with the Oilers, he took over in 2001, he gets that question a lot.
“We’ve had some pretty good players, and he’s very much at the top,” Medure said of Danner, who played a big role in bringing a CIF Southern Section Division 1 title to Huntington Beach as a sophomore. “I was talking to Collin Balester [on Wednesday], and Collin pitched for me in 2004, pitched in the big leagues, and he’s still trying to pitch in the big leagues right now. He always asks me, ‘Who is better, me or Hagen?’ It’s kind of funny. It’s hard for me to answer that question without hurting feelings.
“But right now watching Hagen do what he’s doing at the plate and on the mound, he’s pretty special. He’s definitely in the top three players that we’ve ever coached. And not to be outdone, Nick Pratto is right up there, too. They just happen to be on the same team.”
Danner and Pratto have been playing together for some time now. This is before he and Pratto were members of the Ocean View team that won the Little League World Series in 2011.
“I’ve caught Pratto since I was like 8 years old,” Danner said of the senior left-hander, who also plays first base and is bound for USC. “I know basically everything about him and what he wants to throw. He likes to hit his spots with his fastball, and then he’s got a great changeup. His curveball is very good now. He worked on it over the offseason and it’s awesome. It’s easy to catch him.”
And it’s easy to be Hagen Danner these days. He is living in the moment and taking everything in stride.
Hagen Danner
Born: Sept. 30, 1998
Hometown: Huntington Beach
Height: 6-foot-2
Weight: 195 pounds
Sport: Baseball
Year: Senior
Coach: Benji Medure
Favorite food: Burrito
Favorite movie: “The Sandlot”
Favorite athletic moment: “Winning a gold medal with Team USA the last two years [in the under-18 division at the COPABE Pan American AAA Championships in Mexico in 2016 and at the World Baseball Softball Confederation World Cup in Japan in 2015].”
Week in review: Danner went five for six with two home runs, seven runs batted in and a double in the Oilers’ wins against Riverside Poly and Orange Lutheran last week. The UCLA signee went six innings, striking out six while allowing two runs on six hits and walking one in Huntington Beach’s 7-2 win against the Lancers, who at the time were the top-ranked team in the nation by PerfectGame.org.
Twitter: @ByDCP
