Christian McGuire, Canyon baseball, Jr.
On the diamond: Canyon opened the postseason in perhaps more dominant fashion than any other team in the area, sweeping Pecos in the Class 4A bidistrict round 15-1 and 12-1 in a pair of 10-run mercy rule victories, and nobody swung a hotter bat for the Eagles than McGuire. Pecos couldn’t retire McGuire once in the series, as the shortstop went 6-for-6, driving in three runs, collecting four singles, a double and a triple, falling a home run short of hitting for the cycle in the series. McGuire also happened to be on the mound to close out the series, and pitched a perfect inning, getting two strikeouts and a groundout to clinch the sweep and ensure that the Eagles will move on to this week’s area round, when they will face El Paso Riverside in a best-of-three series at Hobbs, N.M. It will be a competitive second round matchup, as both teams have 23 wins.
Coach John Doan: “It was quite a performance out of Christian. As a coach you get caught up in situations and what happens with who’s next in the lineup and you kind of just forget these individual performances which are going on. I don’t know if you need to have those kind of performances in the postseason, and you’re not going to get one that good all the time, but it was sure good to get it at that moment. He didn’t get to play last year because of a knee injury, and to come back this year, I think he just wanted it so bad. He’s a hard, hard worker with lots of cuts after practice alone in the cage. In these three-game series you want your starters to go deep but you may need some guys to come in for those middle innings and chew some things up. Christian’s definitely a guy we trust on the mound.”
McGuire: “It’s easy to get riled up for playoff games because they’re a lot of fun. Once you get confident, that’s all hitting is. When you get confidence, nobody can stop you. I got a lot of fastballs this past week. I definitely went up there looking fastball and I got it. I slumped for awhile during the year so it’s really good to get all the way back and make a full swing. I definitely wanted to pitch but I didn’t know how much I would because we have a whole lot of arms that are really good. There was no place I would have rather been than on the mound to close it out. I’d like to pitch this weekend, but we’ll see how it goes.”
About McGuire
Favorite band or musician: Toby Mac
Favorite social media platform: Snapchat
Favorite athlete: Josh Jung
Bet you didn’t know: Prays a lot during games.
Parents: Kelley and Lacie White
