Bernie BB turns focus towards fundamentals in the fall

Regardless of their sport, most coaches have concerns about the importance of conditioning early in their seasons. However, veteran Bernie High School baseball coach Marcus Massey doesn’t have as much concern in that regard as some do.

The Mules recently had 23 athletes come out for the 2023 fall baseball season, which gets underway on Aug. 25 with a game at Holcomb (4:30 p.m.), and six of those baseball players are also dual-sport athletes, being also members of the eight-person Bernie boy’s cross country squad.

“You always have a little bit more energy (early in camp) than what we’re going to have in two or three weeks,” Massey said. “But our kids, being a small school, we don’t have many options.”

If you’re a Bernie male student who loves competing in sports, then you have cross country and baseball in the fall, basketball and…. well, basketball in the winter, and baseball in the spring. That gives the Bernie boy students a LOT of time on the baseball diamond, which also includes playing a one-month summer schedule of games.

“As a kid,” Massey said, “if you like to play, and you’re competitive, then you can’t wait to go. We have kids, who continue to come out season after season, and we’re lucky for that.”

The Mule baseball/cross country kids (Camden Stoner, Jonah Copeland, Cade Arnold, Taven Owens, Josiah Copeland, and Braxton Arnold) also have weight training that they participate in year-round, as well as school starting on Aug. 21.

The Mules are coming off an 18-win spring season, which culminated less than 12 weeks ago with the Mules’ first MSHSAA Class 2 District and Sectional titles since 2018. However, Massey said that he is not running practices (or games) this fall identically to how he managed the spring season.

“We definitely change (our training) up in the fall,” Massey explained. “The first half of a practice is totally different than what we’ll do any other time of year.”

Massey said in the spring, the focus is on winning every game, sometimes of which there are as many as four games in a week.

In the fall season, the emphasis is on player development, both skill-wise and mentally.

“We’ll spend the first hour of practice, where everything is working on fundamentals,” Massey said. “Fundamental breakdown of pulling ground balls, fundamentals on fly balls, and fundamentals on throwing.

“In the spring, we’re preparing them for conference opponents or District opponents, and the next gameplan. In the fall, we slow it all back down.”

The Mules will play in excess of 20 games this fall, culminating in hosting a Fall Tournament on Sept. 30 through Oct. 3.

“We literally start from basic one,” Massey said of his teaching. “We have new freshmen (seven of them) coming in, and they have never done anything. So, it is a whole new world for them.

“We just build up every day. Our goal is to get one percent better every day.”

The Mules, ironically, also won 18 games last fall, against five defeats. Bernie topped Holcomb, Campbell, and Risco to win the Mules’ Fall Tournament a year ago.

“If we lose a few games,” Massey said, “but we’re getting better every day, then it is what it is. We’re going to do some things (differently), and I’m going to do some things, and we’re going to throw some lineups out there where we might lose because of it. But, we don’t have that option in the spring because there is too much on the line.”