Fall Baseball Season Has Arrived

Summer is finally over, although you couldn't tell it by the continued miserably hot weather, and the boys are getting back into the school year routine.

Lo and behold, Matthew is one of only 4 Sophomore players who have been promoted to the varsity baseball group that meets in their 7th period class and have been invited to play with the Varsity in the Fall Baseball program.

As the Fall season slowly gets started, Matthew was invited to play in the HTASO Varsity tournament, which is designed to generate money to help with Umpire costs as well as a certain percentage of charity donations.

This tournament was supposed to be crammed into one complete weekend which would have lasted late into the night on Sunday, September 8th; however, Mother Nature saw fit to intervene and suspend play halfway into our second game on Saturday by putting on a very impressive lightning show, causing us to have to pick the schedule back up this coming Saturday, the 14th.

Matthew managed to get 2 at bats over the past weekend where he hit the ball hard and managed to get 1 RBI.  He contributed by making 3 catches in right field, one of which was a highlight reel catch over the shoulder at a full run toward the fence in right-center field and threw the ball back to the infield, preventing two possible runs from scoring, not to mention keeping all runners from advancing.

We are looking forward to the upcoming weekend's activities, which will be challenging to say the least, as we will have to juggle the remaining TASO games as well as the first weekend of play with the 17U Grey team for the Allen Baseball Club.

This Week in Katy High School Baseball - July 3, 2013

http://youtu.be/4ZAb7mHah8Y

Matthew had a pretty good week with a 3 for 4 game (Video Link) followed up by a 2 for 4 game later in the week, which  unfortunately forgot to charge the camera for.

He has been on a tear with the bat recently getting 7 hits in 7 consecutive at-bats over a three game stretch going back to the Allen Baseball tournament that he played in the previous week.

We have the 4th of July weekend off which will mark the first week in over a month that we don't have Katy Baseball and weekend Allen Baseball in the same week.

Matthew should be well rested and ready to get back into his busy schedule next week.

This Week in Katy High School Baseball- July 1, 2013

Matthew played two Katy High School games this week.

The first game was against Cy Falls at Katy High on Tuesday night, where Matthew went one for two with a line drive hit into right field that drove in two runs, a sacrifice fly to deep right center field and was hit by a pitch.

The second game was at Katy Taylor High School against Katy Taylor where Matthew went two for two with a line drive base hit into centerfield,a sacrifice bunt that he beat out for a hit and was again hit by a pitch.

Matthew has been working incredibly hard lately playing 6 to 7 games per week in addition to about 12 hours of Very intense Allen Baseball field practice.  I look on in awe at his commitment and work ethic, which is impressive by any standards.  He is a rare person.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtGpIb0x358

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F67gK0HCaHk

Katy High School Summer Baseball

After several disappointing  rain-outs, the Katy High School Summer baseball program finally kicked off this week with three games back to back on three consecutive nights.

All of this in conjunction with a five game weekend where Matthew and the Allen Baseball club's 16U Navy team won three and lost 2 in the 16U Heat  Tournament that consisted of more than 20 of the top 16U teams in the area. 

Top all of this off with two six hour practice sessions on Tuesday and Thursday in the 100 degree heat makes for an extremely grueling baseball schedule that would rival most college programs.

Allen Baseball Cub at the 16U Heat Tournament:

We handily beat the 16U Heat Silver team, which is a very respectable team as well as one of the "Twelve" teas out of College Station, which put us in the second bracket on Sunday where we came up against the top team from the "Kyle Chapman" program.  

As we pulled into the parking Lott, someone was getting out of the car next to us with a KC uniform on standing several inches taller than my 6 foot 1 inch frame and weighing all of 220 pounds.  My wife said, "I sure hope that is one of the coaches."  Unfortunately, she was wrong.  Despite having the body and facial features of a large college athlete, this was the kid who recently pitched the winning game in the Texas High School Varsity State Championship game.

He pitched 6 strong innings against us where he never threw a pitch under 90mph in route to a 8 to 0 score.  Matthew came in and pitched the final 2 innings for us, striking out 2 and not giving up any runs.

Matthew ended up drawing several walks, one hit-by-pitch and only one hit for the weekend with a screaming double into the left field corner.  Despite several hard hit balls that seemed to find a home in someone's glove Matthew seemed to have convinced himself that he was in some sort of hitting slump, which is only psychological as it would prove out during the following week long Katy High a school campaign.

He also made one of the most amazing plays at third base that I have ever seen at this level and would have made the MLB highlight reel on ESPN.  He was playing about 6 to 10 feet off of third base and about even with the bag, when a very sharply hit ball was hit right down the line across the bag.  Matthew took one step toward the foul line behind the bag and dove with his glove arm outstretched, catching the ball and springing back to his feet, throwing a perfect strike to the first baseman all in one graceful motion, beating out the runner by close to a full step.  I don't know anyone else who would have come close to making that play.

Katy High School Summer League

After a long weekend of Allen Baseball, we started the new week over right away with Katy High School games on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, on top of the regular Allen Baseball 5 hour practice sessions on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

Matthew drew several walks, and hit several balls hard that were caught for outs; however, he managed to go 1 for 2 on Tuesday with a line drive into the outfield and 2 for 2 on Wednesday with a long double through the gap in left center field and a sharp single through the infield on the left side.

We are looking forward to an upcoming weekend off so that Matthew can rest his arm a little, as it has been bothering him for the past few days and he has been holding ice packs on it at night. 

Well, summer is definitely here with a bang.  Wednesday was the last day of school and today marks the beginning of an incredibly busy baseball Summer.  Matthew starts off the Summer season today with a 2:00pm game at Goose Creek Memorial High School, which will be followed up with two games tomorrow, one game Sunday, four hours of Allen Baseball field practice on Tuesday morning, one Katy High School game on Tuesday night, one Katy High School game on Wednesday night and four hours of Allen Baseball field practice again on Thursday morning.

That adds up to six games and 8 hours of practice over a seven day period in the heat of the Summer sun, which is enough to separate the wanna-be's from the ones who refuse to accept failure.  This is exactly the rigorous schedule that can be expected for those who strive to make it to the next level and play college baseball.

 One of the exciting things about working with Skip Allen and the Allen Baseball Club is his ability to find kids that have the heart and desire to move to the next level, motivate them sufficiently to put in the necessary work to achieve their goals and drag every ounce of ability out of them through a demanding practice regime, an active playing schedule and teaching them integrity, work ethic and team work.

Matthew's summer team is a collection of slightly over achieving 16 year olds who will play throughout the Summer in a predominantly 19 and under bracket, which will give them opportunities to face higher levels of competition, especially high 80s to low 90s pitching.  In theory, this should heighten their abilities and harden their resolve to move to the next level.  We shall see.....

Matthew recently finished up a successful spring season with the Katy High School Sophomore Team and has already gotten started with the Allen Baseball Club Summer season.  At the same time, he has been chosen to be a part of the Katy High School Summer program, which will call for quite a commitment as well as quite a busy summer.  He will be practicing and or playing up to 5 or 6 games per week with the Allen Cub as well as practice sessions and two games per week for the Katy High School club.

It's a good thing that we can plan a family vacation around one of his Summer travel tournaments.

MATTHEW CHILTON

2013 Summer Baseball Program for Katy High School

I will be posting statistics and game results throughout the Summer season for Matthew's Katy High School team.