The Lake Washington baseball team may be used to playing different, bigger schools. They may be used to some tough competition, but dropping down into the 3A KingCo league this year doesn’t mean anything else is going to be easier.

“We know that 3A baseball is very competitive like 4A,” said the Kangs head coach Derek Bingham. “We’re not expecting that, just because we’re moving down, to move straight to the top. It’s not going to be that way.”

The team returns a core group from last spring, which ended in the KingCo 4A tournament, one win away from heading to state. Bingham said even though the 4A league was tough last spring, including some of the best teams in the state, he knows the 3A KingCo matches won’t be much different.

“Teams like Mercer Island, Mount Si, Liberty and Bellevue – good programs over the last few years and we’re expecting a good challenge. We’ve played a few of those teams over the last three years in non-league all the those games have been competitive so we’re not expecting anything different,” said the coach.

The Kangs are led on the field by captains Spencer Jackson, who plays second base and pitcher, as well as Bob Cruikshank, who plays short stop and pitcher for the team.

Jackson said the team is looking really good, despite dealing with bad weather, which has played with their practice schedule.

“We have lots of depth and great coaching,” said the senior. He said the team is excited to face off against Mount Si, and that the Kangs are ready to make a name for themselves at the 3A level.

Bingham said in the first weeks of practice he’s really liked what he’s seen from the two captains, as well as the rest of the senior class.

“I really like the leadership of the team right now, we have a lot of seniors, but we have three sophomores on the team as well and at our school sophomores are first year students,” said the coach. “So it’s good for them, it’s their first experience in the program, with a group of seniors who are so driven and motivated.”

That motivation and drive will help the team down the stretch as they work to toward the league matches.

“I think that one of our strengths is that plays which should be outs, will be outs,” said Bingham. “We may not make a ton of spectacular, splashy plays, but they are really consistent and I feel confident that every time a guy gets a hit that we have someone who can make a play on it. “

Bingham said while defense may not be as big of an aspect of high school baseball as offense it, it’s still important because there is nothing more demoralizing than when a team gets an error off an easy play. Of course, you can’t win games without having a solid pitching group either.

“Obviously I think baseball is won on the mound, so you’ve got to be deep in the pitching staff, especially around here when you end up with three or four game weeks based on the rain – if you don’t have a decent guy at No. 5, No. 6 who is going to throw five or 10 innings over the course of a month it’s going to come back to get you.”

One area Lake Washington will be looking to figure out is behind home plate. Bingham said last season’s catcher, who caught every inning of every game for the team, graduated, leaving the team with two catchers who haven’t gotten much game experience.

“They are both talented,” said Bingham. “But that’s going to be a key point for us.”

This year the KingCo league matches don’t begin until the end of March, and the team will be traveling to Arizona for a tournament during spring break, meaning their options for early non-league games have been limited. Baseball teams are only allowed 20 games in a season, per the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association rules. To make everything fit, Bingham said they will be organizing an in-house series to get closer to the game experience.

Already in an only weeks old season, the coach said he’s seeing a team comfortable with each other and motivated.

“This group cares a lot about each other,” he said. The team’s long standing goal has been to win KingCo, which will take a solid season from beginning to end to accomplish.

“We’re taking it one step at a time, but it starts and ends with KingCo,” he said.

The Kangs will travel to Liberty on April 6, before playing Mercer Island at Lee Johnson Field on April 8 and traveling to Mount Si on April 15.