Putting the Fight Back in the Irish

When Coach Chris Pascal took stock of his Kennedy High baseball team last year after a dismal season, he found the Irish didn’t have a whole lot of fight in them.

Routine plays were made adventurous. Small defensive mistakes swelled into big innings by the opposition. In tight games, the team folded faster than a beach chair.

Even more troubling was how the players seemed to react to adversity. Some sulked over the mounting losses. Others laughed openly at their own ineptitude.

It didn’t make for a winning combination. Kennedy won one game in the Empire League and six games overall.

The gloomy situation prompted Pascal to take a long look at how he was running his program heading into his 15th season, and it wasn’t long before he had orchestrated a complete overhaul.

First, he added to the coaching staff. Then he gave seniors more responsibilities. Finally, he told his team it needed to “clean the slate and get back to where we’re a team that needs to be reckoned with.”

One season later, the results are as glaring as Irish outfielder Steve Yaden’s shaved head.

Kennedy won the Empire League title by a half game over El Dorado, finishing 18-8-1 overall and 11-3-1 in league. It was the first league championship for the Fighting Irish since they won the Garden Grove League in 1993. Kennedy rejoined the Empire League in 1995.

“Obviously, when you go from one league win to a league championship, you have to have a lot of pieces fall into place,” said Pascal, The Times’ Orange County Baseball Coach of the Year. “We had a group of young men who did what we asked them to do and believed that no matter the circumstances, they could put themselves in a position to win.”

Pascal promoted Ted Gugert, the junior varsity coach, to the varsity level. Gugert’s replacement, Ken Hokuf, a former Chapman player, was someone Pascal could turn to for a new perspective on things. Pascal also brought in Ron Latham as a varsity assistant.

There was also some help from outside the program. Former major league pitcher Greg Harris volunteered to work with the Kennedy pitchers on occasion.

Pascal decided his seniors needed to have a bigger stake in the team’s success, so he charged them with the upkeep of the field.

Kennedy participated in a winter league for the first time in school history and players underwent a rigorous weight-training regimen.

Then the Irish went out and played top-notch baseball. After the first round of league games, Kennedy was 4-0-1. Cypress Coach Mark Steinert, whose Centurions would lose two of three to Kennedy this season, began to take notice.

“Their confidence built up as the season went along,” Steinert said. “Usually, the old Kennedy teams, if something bad happened early, you had them where you wanted them. They seemed to overcome adversity better this year and played with a lot more confidence and team chemistry.”

The Irish won seven consecutive games entering their Division II first-round playoff game against Santa Maria Righetti, but couldn’t keep the streak going, losing, 4-1.

Nonetheless, when Pascal evaluates this season, he’ll be hard-pressed to measure the amount of fight he and the Irish put into their impressive turnaround.