St. Xavier baseball finding chemistry through English

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- St. Xavier is back in the state baseball tournament this week for the first time since winning it all in 2018.

And while it may sound like so much coach speak, head coach Andy Porta credits a good deal of their success to a certain school subject buoyed by another subject.

"The chemistry, they bought into the chemistry," said Porta.

To unearth that chemistry, Porta stepped out of his comfort zone and took a suggestion from one of his assistant coaches.

"Nate Stemle's an English teacher now and our head Freshman coach and he came to me one day and said 'Coach, I've got an idea, let's have a book study with the varsity guys'," said Porta. "I'm a math teacher, Coach Cotty's a math teacher, Coach Lyons is a science teacher and Coach Amlung works for the Army Corps of Engineers, so we're like 'woah, English, wait a minute'.

"So he kind of tutored us and he took the first session and we did John Gordon's Energy Bus and the kids bought into it. We said everybody needed to buy a copy of this and Saturday mornings, sometimes in place of batting practice at 7:00 a.m. we'd be in the locker room. It's all about positive energy outweighing any negative kind of energy. It's how you turn a negative into a positive, stuff that we can apply to baseball and to life.

"We're sharing stuff about our personal lives. There were times that there were tears in those sessions."

Porta said they have used the book as a reference point throughout the season.

"The kids have done it and we have done it," said Porta. "OK, we lost to Male in the district finals. That's definitely a negative. How can we turn it into a positive."

"I think that was extremely helpful, " said senior pitcher Luke Lantz. "The reaction afterwards kind of boosted our morale and took that to the region championship. We didn't want to feel the same way afterwards."

"It's got us to be open with each other, maybe call each other out for the better and make people realize how their actions affect the energy of the team," said senior pitcher Ben Tedesco. "It's helped us move toward the right direction, helped us achieve our goal."

One of the big goals was to get back to Lexington and add a Ninth state championship for the school. But whatever happens over the next couple of weekends in Lexington, Porta feels like this group will be in a good place.

"It's great to win ballgames, it's great to win state championships, but the biggest thing is we're trying to turn out solid citizens," said Porta. "We're trying to continue the work that there parents have done since day one, the work that the school does. There's kids that truly want their teammates to have success ahead of themselves and you can't ask for more than that as a coach."

The Tigers head into the state tournament with a 30-10 record against a schedule that included a number of out-of-state powers. They open things in the single elimination tournament Friday at 1:30 pm in Lexington against Christian County.