Last Friday, Diamond Bar High School’s baseball team competed in its last game of the season, finishing with a record of 12-14 and fifth in league.

”A couple things come to mind in regards to improving.  Over the course of the year, our defense became a little lackluster at times, so that did hurt us in a few ways,” head coach Jon Hurst said.

Earlier this year, the DBHS baseball team kicked off its season with a great start; only a month into league, the team’s wins nearly doubled its losses with nine wins and five losses.

“We did a very good job pitching and hitting, since some of our competition was so good that our players had to be extremely talented,” Hurst said.

But the Brahmas hit a slight slump soon after, with five consecutive losses in April.

The most recent five weeks have seen the boys competing against different schools twice every week, those being Ayala, South Hills, Claremont, Bonita, and Glendora.

The Brahmas lost against Ayala with scores of 10-5 and 6-2.  Not long after that, the Brahmas were hit with further losses after playing against South Hills, also losing both games and finishing with 10-5 and 13-3.

Things began to look up for the Brahmas again after winning both games against Claremont, 10-2 and 4-3.

”I think that we definitely took a step in the right direction as far as the program is concerned.  Our league is very, very talented and very competitive. It’s just that our league is so good, that we, unfortunately, can’t afford to make any mistakes if we want to perform well,” Hurst said.

The Brahmas also made a few changes to their overall team structure this year with a group of nine captains.

According to Hurst, there were many seniors on the team who played the leadership role well. This led to the tight knit communal leadership they have now, a group of players that Hurst believes has helped support the team throughout the season.

With the end of the season, Hurst has reflected on his first year of coaching the team.

”I loved it, it was awesome and I can’t wait to do it for a long, long time.  It was fun getting the opportunity to come in and try to change the culture of the program a little bit and work on different aspects of it from the ground up.”