With nine players back from a team that reached the state baseball playoffs, Mountain View hopes to compete for a 3A Greater St. Helens League title.
The Thunder also want to focus on what builds a championship culture.
On March 5, Mountain View’s baseball and softball programs hosted Donnie Marbut, who won more than 300 games as Washington State’s baseball coach from 2005-15. He spoke about championship team-building through leadership and winning traditions.
And what the Thunder took away most, baseball coach Aaron Coiteux said, was to put more value on the game of baseball.
“It’s good for myself, the kids and programs to remember why they’re playing the sport and why it really matters,” said Coiteux, who played for Marbut at Edmonds Community College. “One is competition, and two is playing as a unit.”
“We need to have personal goals and team goals and team goals can’t be trumped by individuals goals,” Coiteux added. “Hopefully if we can figure out what’s important as a team, it will help us be more of a unit and stronger and compete for one another.”
A team aspect is the strength Coiteux praises most about this year’s Thunder following a season they reached the 3A regionals. Out of the four 3A GSHL playoff-bound teams, Mountain View was the only one to reach regionals.
This year, they hope to make program history.
Mountain View knows winning — its last league title came in 2016 in the 4A GSHL. But it has never won is a state playoff game. Not in Coiteux’s tenure. Not since the school’s first baseball season in 1982.
With a blend of veterans, including six all-league returnees and talented newcomers, Coiteux believes the ingredients are there to challenge for a league title and go from there and do something no other Mountain View Thunder team has done before them.
“Hopefully,” he said, “win one, and win more.”
