The Powell Storm 12U baseball team recently completed its sophomore season, competing in nearly twice as many games as last year and posting top three finishes in two season-ending tournaments.

In all, the Storm played 21 games, going 8-12-1 on the season.

“We played 10 games in just the last two weekends of the season, qualifying for the medal rounds in the Lovell and Cody tournaments,” said Storm head coach Derek Solberg.

The squad took second place in Lovell and third place in Cody. Technically a club team, the Storm is not affiliated with the Powell Recreation District; rather, it serves as a player development team that helps prepare the players for their Little League seasons.

The Storm began play in early April, and continued through the Cody Stampede Baseball Tournament earlier this month. Solberg said players showed marked improvement weekly, as illustrated by the team’s stats — there wasn’t an easy out anywhere in the lineup.

“One of the biggest things that popped out this year stats-wise is, we had a couple of kids that were hitting the ball pretty well throughout the year, but some kids struggled,” he said. “Through our first 10 games, our team batting average was .268. Our last 10 games we played, our team batting average was .452. At the end of the season, everybody top to bottom was putting the ball in play hard, and I think that’s why we had success in those two tournaments.”

Another impressive statistic came in the form of strikeouts. Through the first 10 games, the Storm struck out a collective 94 times; through the last 10 contests, that number dropped to 50.

“We cut our strikeouts in half, which was great to see,” Solberg said. “If you’re not striking out, you’re making the other team play defense — you’re making them work a little bit harder.”

The Storm was able to take advantage of an unseasonably warm April, playing three doubleheaders that month.

“We didn’t lose any games to weather this year, and those games in April were beautiful,” Solberg said. “We got really lucky with weather. And we were able to play a few more teams. We played Sheridan once this year, we played Lovell a bunch, we played Cody a bunch. We played the Powell Outlaws a couple of times. The games just added up, and that was great.”

Solberg and his staff made a point not to schedule games more than three weeks in a row, lest the players go into their Little League seasons with sore arms and baseball burnout.

“Nobody told me it was too many games, so that worked out well. It seemed to be just the right amount of games,” he said. “We told the kids at the beginning of the season that this is club baseball — wins and losses don’t really mean anything. Our motto this year was to have fun and make those kids better baseball players. I think everybody had a good time and became a better baseball player.”

Joining Solberg on the coaching staff this season were Bret Fauskee, Waleryan Wisniewski, Clint Graft and Brad Thompson.

“The coaches put in a lot of time and effort, and kids were able to learn from different guys,” Solberg said. “We worked these kids hard, we were tough on them at times. But I think it paid off in the end.”

A couple of team highlights from the season included playing the first doubleheader of the season with wood bats, as well as two games with 50/70 rules, where the pitching distance is 50 feet and the length between the bases is 70 feet.

“With those dimensions, you can actually steal and lead off, and I think that experience, along with the wood bat games, were the highlights for the kids,” Solberg said. “They kept asking, ‘Hey coach, can we get more of those games?’ Those were some of the things we did this year that we didn’t use last year, and the kids really enjoyed them.”

Looking ahead to next season, Solberg said he’ll try to keep the number of games right around the 20 mark. The most gratifying aspect of the season for him and the other coaches was seeing the strides made in every facet of the game for the kids.

“The improvement from the beginning to the end, the bringing home the hardware — everybody was pretty excited to have a trophy and medals from those two tournaments,” he said. “Just seeing the kids get better each week really is what it’s all about. I want to thank the players and the coaches for a really successful year.”