By ADEM SARICAOGLU
SUNSHINE coach Earl Byrne is the first to admit he could have gone about a few things a little differently this summer.
His Eagles never really took flight in Summer League Baseball’s Division One, finishing the 25-game season last week with just two wins to their credit.
While injuries did play their part throughout the summer, Byrne told Star his first year with the Eagles was “OK” in parts.
“There are probably some little things that I need to fix up, personally, with a few things at training that I need to do differently with hitting and just keeping the boys a little bit more busy,” Byrne said.
“I felt that I wasn’t on top of my game with that, but that’s easily fixed and other than that, on game days I thought I performed OK, and I got the respect of the boys.”
Byrne entered into a two-year deal to coach the Eagles at the start of the summer, and after meeting with the club board last week, he will fulfil the second year of his commitment.
“We just talked about what we need to go a little better next year,” Byrne explained.
“So it was more or less just making sure that we’re all on the same page and we all want to head in the right direction.”
Byrne did take some positives out of the season, noting the efforts of import pitcher Chris Prokupek, left fielder Matthew Davis and youngster Allister Lovelock before a broken collarbone stifled his season.
“Chris Prokupek did really well for us and he was quite handy – we just didn’t score enough runs for him,” Byrne said.
“Matty Davis was pretty good for us most of the year with the bat and in the field – he was one of our main hitters for the year.
“And Allister Lovelock, before he hurt himself, was playing really, really well.
“He’s only an 18-year-old kid but he’s proved for himself that he can play first division baseball, which is good for him.”
Under normal circumstances Sunshine will have been relegated into Division Two, but with Baseball Victoria tipped to re-vamp the Summer League during the off-season, the Eagles’ fate is not yet known.
