Live Oak graduate Neal Andrade will try to continue his winning
percentage against his former team when the Balers and the Acorns
meet Wednesday afternoon. But Live Oak doesn
’t have any aspirations of making it easy for him.
Live Oak graduate Neal Andrade will try to continue his winning percentage against his former team when the Balers and the Acorns meet Wednesday afternoon. But Live Oak doesn’t have any aspirations of making it easy for him.
In his three years as coach for Live Oak’s rival, Andrade has a 5-2 record against former tutor Mark Cummins. Andrade has picked up the style he learned from Cummins – the style of winning. Maybe the teacher has taught his pupil too well.
Cummins has guided the Live Oak baseball program to six league titles and 14 trips to the Central Coast Section playoffs in his 17 years as the head mentor. But one thing Cummins is still missing is that elusive CCS title. The Balers and the Acorns will have to contend with each other to get there.
“It is a fun league, and all the coaches have a good rapport with each other,” Andrade said. “There is normally a couple teams that have a pretty good run in our league then represent CCS pretty well.”
As a 1994 graduate, Andrade has seen some good baseball with Live Oak. Andrade made the varsity team his sophomore year and helped the team win a Monterey Bay League championship while undergoing the traditional sophomore ridicule. During his junior year, Andrade batted over .400 and made first team All-League.
“Neal was a great player for us here,” Cummins said. “He was a hard worker. A real good leader. He always stayed late and did the extra things to become the ball player he was.”
Andrade’s two brothers also played for Cummins at Live Oak. His sister Allison played softball at West Valley after graduating from Live Oak and for the Arizona when the team won the national title.
“She is the athlete in the family,” Andrade said jokingly.
While at Live Oak, Andrade was a catcher and third baseman.
“He was kind of a self-made player,” Cummins said. “He was a blue-collar type of worker. He was a hard-nose guy that didn’t care if he got dirty as long as he got the job done. He has carried that over to his coaching career.”
Andrade attended Gavilan for two years than attended Portland State University on an athletic scholarship. He started as an assistant coach at Gavilan under Mark Dover, who is now coaching at North Monterey County.
After two years at Gavilan, he took up the position with the Balers, where he has been for three years. Andrade, who is marrying his fiancee Joanna Bruno in July, currently works for the Gilroy Recreation Department.
“He is very aggressive,” said Cummins on Andrade’s style of coaching. “They (the Balers) are very well coached. They are very fundamentally sound. Anytime we play them, we know it is going to be a good battle. It is a lot fun playing them because we know it will be a fundamentally sound ball game. They know how to play the game right, and we do too.”
But Live Oak has not fared too well against Hollister since Andrade took over. In 2001, Live Oak won 5-0 in the first meeting but lost the next game 9-5. Last year, Hollister swept Live Oak in its three meetings 3-2, 7-4 and then 4-3 in the Central Coast Section quarterfinals after a walk-off home run by Nathan Rowe.
“He did beat up on us a little bit last year,” Cummins said. “Hopefully we can get that record straight and back to where it should be.”
“There is nothing much too it,” Andrade said about changing allegiances. “It was a nerve-racking experience the first time I faced someone that coached me. After the first time, it is just another team we play. It is just San Benito versus Live Oak and not much more than that.”
Only a potential league title rides on the outcome of the game. The two teams have split their games this year with each winning in the other’s park.
“You would think that would be an advantage to us,” said Andrade about the home game. “But where you play in a lot of these high school games is irrelevant. It comes down to who is pitching, who is hot and who is going to make the plays.”
“That is the type of league it is,” Cummins added. “We’re two evenly matched teams.”
The main thing he learned from Cummins in high school is how to deal with people, Andrade said.
“He had a good rapport with the kids,” Andrade said. “It was always fun to go out there and practice after school. It was kind of a family type atmosphere. We have had some tough times with losing people within the program. It makes everyone a little tighter. We had a lot of fun and good times as well.”
Both the Acorns and Balers bring similar style of play to the table.
“I think we kind of model each other a little bit especially with pitching and defense,” Andrade said. “We seen from some of the good examples in the pros that pitching wins games.”
While Live Oak (14-8, 8-2 TCAL) went 1-3 over spring break, Hollister (17-5, 8-2 TCAL) went 3-1 in the Lions Easter Tournament. The loss was a 9-7 loss to Arch Bishop Mitty, which beat Live Oak 7-1. Hollister also picked up a non-league win over North Monterey County.
Live Oak, which has allowed just 3.31 runs per game this season, comes into the game with one of the area’s best defenses of any of the teams in the Santa Cruz, Monterey Bay, Mission Trail or Tri-County leagues, according to mbaypreps.com. The Live Oak pitching staff has also given up the second fewest number of hits in the area.
Live Oak ace Ryan Muller, who signed a letter of intent with the University of San Francisco, will be opposed by Rowe.
Both Muller and Balers Eric Diaz, who are the pitching leaders on their teams, can hit and field as well.
Diaz, who is the league’s leading hitter, will probably get the start at second base Wednesday. Muller, who plays flawless at third base, has the second highest batting average.
“Both are very good athletes and are similar hitters even though Diaz hits left-handed.” Cummins said. “They are both very competitive on the mound.”
On Monday, Cummins was uncertain whether Rowe, who has a better record but higher ERA, or Diaz would pitch Wednesday.
“Both are similar in their stuff,” Cummins said. “Either way we will have our work cut out for us.”
“We need to play good defense behind Ryan,” Cummins said. “He will keep us in the game. He is averaging eight to 10 strikeouts per game. We need to make sure we make those other plays when he doesn’t strike out the guys. We are going to play for the early runs to try to help us relax.”
The Balers will be joined by shortstop Nick Ramos, a first-team All-MBL pick who was out with ankle and hamstring injuries about four weeks.
Each team knows that Wednesday’s game is a big game, but anything can happen.
“After the game neither team can assume the league is won by any means,“ Andrade said. “You can’t pack it in if you lost or sit on your laurels if you win because you still have some tough games coming up.”
