After an historic 2017 season that saw Lyford claim its first district baseball title since 1995, the Bulldogs are back in business this year and more determined than ever.
With key returners like Layne Klostermann (last year’s District MVP), Chris Gonzalez (first team all-district), Andrew Reyna (second team all-district), Alfonso Garcia (second team all-district) and Abel Gonzalez (district newcomer of the year), Lyford will be in the title picture again this season.
“We are doing OK,” said Lyford head coach Chris Cervantes. “We are further along than we were last season at this point and we are just trying to continue to work hard and work on some of the basic fundamentals of baseball. We have had a lot of close games that we have been in where we have allowed other teams to get back into the game and we are just learning how to finish.”
Closing games is something that the Bulldogs have struggled with this year. This season the Bulldogs are 6-4-1, however one loss was by two runs and the other three were by one.
Some of the team’s goals this year are to win back-to-back district titles and to get past the first round of the playoffs.
“Our goal last year was to win the district title and go beyond the bi-district round and we were able to achieve the first one,” said Cervantes. “This year it is the same, that’s why playing bigger schools has been very important for us.
“When I started scheduling games for us this year, I really wanted to get teams that were really going to push us to get better, especially with the tough Coastal Bend teams in Class 3A.”
Some of the Bulldogs’ leading hitters are so far this season are Abel Gonzalez (.548), Chris Gonzalez (.519), Layne Klostermann (.429) and Andrew Reyna, who is hitting .394.
NEXT LEVEL: Former Harlingen High coach Bryan Aughney is already recruiting some South Texas talent to Our Lady of the Lake University, where he took over a skipper last year.
Lyford’s Layne Klostermann has already committed to the Saints.
Klosterman was last seasons 32-3A All-District MVP and the ValleyMorning Star’s All-STAR MVP. This year Klostermann has already had a great start to the first half of the season.
