Chico Escuela posted:Coach_TV posted:Would be interested to hear anyone else's story about their son struggling at the HS level.
My son's story... he was the leading hitter on his travel ball team from 8U -13U, always lead the team in all areas; Hits, AVG, OPS, SLG. Then he goes to HS and played JV last year as a freshman and struggles..big time, 5 hits over the season for a .179 AVG.
Now I know some of that is the change to the BBCOR -3 bat, he used a -5 and -3 his last year of travel ball. Summer Legion ball was better with 19 hits and a .306 AVG.
But now he's a Sophomore backup catcher on Varsity and struggling again, 3 hits in 17 PA. 231 AVG.
So I don't know if it's a mental thing in getting overwhelmed at the plate or something else.
Anyone else seen their son struggle in HS?
I don't know if my son's story will be helpful (for sure it won't be encouraging), but:
Chico Jr. was a good hitter from machine pitch through age 14--always hit for average and for power. As an 8th grader he batted clean-up for his middle school team (they won their conference title), then hit in the middle of the lineup during travel ball that summer. This was his second year with a BBCOR bat, and he faced many of the same pitchers he would see the following spring in JV ball.
In JV (third year using BBCOR), the boy just stopped hitting.
It does help, at least to know that others (not all) have struggled as well. My son like your's it seems is a totally different hitter in BP. I happened to be up at their practice yesterday doing some work in the press box and I heard some of the boys yell his name and I looked up and he line a ball of the LC fence 325 ft away.
So I think it's a mental thing overall and maybe a few mechanical things in his swing as well.
He's a catcher who receives, blocks and throws very well; so I don't think it's his eyes...but who knows. The good thing about the boy is he's willing to put in the extra work to figure it out. I built a Plyo wall and hitting net in our garage and to his credit he's been in there every night hitting and throwing Plyo's. So we'll see what happens going forward, he's going to play summer legion and Fall Ball this year; so he'll get a lot of reps (hopefully) to figure it out.