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Jackson Haney (middle) is joined by his father Jake (head baseball coach at Crean Lutheran) and mother Amy after Tuesday’s game. (Photo: Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone).
It’s been a special year for Crean Lutheran High School baseball coach Jake Haney, who is wrapping up his 15th year leading the program.
Haney’s top-seeded Saints are in the CIF Division 4 championship game Saturday morning vs. Canyon at Blair Field and the coach has experienced a memorable season with his son Jackson, the starting catcher on the team.
“It’s a lot of fun,” said Coach Haney, who started the Saints program 15 years ago. “I think we have a really special player-coach relationship in terms of calling pitches and we’ve got a really good synergy together and I really trust his communication and his honest assessment of the pitcher and his stuff and the umpire and the strike zone. It’s really helpful.
“I’ve coached a lot of other people’s kids for 21 years, so this is my third year and his second year on varsity where I’m getting to directly getting to coach him and it’s a lot of fun and he’s done a nice job. To be honest, he does good and he does bad just like the other guys.
“I got some good advice from coaches who coached their kids and I try not to coach him any different and I try not to be overly hard on him when it’s unnecessary and obviously, I’m not going to be soft on him either. I just try and coach him like another kid.”
It’s been a bit of a challenge for Jackson Haney, a junior, who was out from July until January with a back injury.
“He struggled offensively for most of the year because he was not able to swing a bat except for on game days for the first half of the season,” Jake Haney said.
Jackson Haney has stepped up in the playoffs, batting .364 and was voted by his teammates as defensive player of the year. He has displayed a strong arm throwing out runners trying to steal. He had a big defensive play in Crean Lutheran’s 9-6 victory over Sultana in the semifinals.
“It’s unbelievable, being around here since being a little kid, it’s been awesome watching the team and seeing the program grow and for to get to this point is unreal,” Jackson Haney said.
Jackson Haney has been around the ball park for many years following his father’s teams. This is the 14th year of varsity competition for the Saints.
“I’ve been coming to practices since I was in elementary school,” he said. “My favorite baseball players were on the team, it’s been a great time.”
It will mark the third time in the finals for Coach Haney. Haney led Crean Lutheran into the CIF finals in 2016 (Sage Hill beat the Saints 9-0 in the Division 6 final) and in 2005 he was the head coach for Eastside Christian, which lost to Bloomington Christian 3-2 in the Division VII title game.
“My wife (Amy) was our scorekeeper and Jackson was born two days after that game, so technically he was in the dugout that day,” said Jake Haney referring to the 2005 final. (The couple also has a daughter who attends Santiago in Corona).
Jackson Haney will be out to make this a special ending to the season Saturday at Blair Field.
“We have to find a way to win, get our team that ring, get my dad that ring and do it for all 16 of these seniors, they’ve been working so hard these last four years, we want to get it for them,” he said.
—-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com
