It is the bottom of the ninth with bases loaded. A hush rolls over the crowd as senior William Hancock steps up to the plate. This at-bat, however, was decided long before its time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the off-season I put in about ten hours a week doing actual baseball activity, plus a few hours doing baseball-specific workouts,\u201d said Hancock. \u201cDuring the season I add a few hours to that, so about thirteen hours a week outside of original practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
With all the work Hancock puts in for baseball, he still manages to set an example for younger players.<\/p>\n
\u201cWill is a good leader out on the field,\u201d said sophomore Connor Breau, \u201cHe really gives you the confidence to make the extra play and do the work.\u201d<\/p>\n
“Will has given me some great advice on technique,” said sophomore catcher Luke Wewers. \u201cI have really taken his advice on what college schools to look at and, from a catching standpoint, technique and footwork.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, baseball hasn\u2019t always been sunshine and daisies for Hancock.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to give up football,\u201d said Hancock. “I had elbow surgery due to baseball my freshman year. The doctor told me that if I were to play football, I would have to wear a protective brace and I could reinjure my elbow and never be able to play baseball again. So I had to hang football up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scholarships are especially hard to obtain\u00a0in baseball, but Hancock\u2019s advice on getting one comes down to a single word: \u201cwork.”<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to put a lot of work in outside of original practices. You have to have the motivation to do it on your own,\u201d he said. \u201cThe normal high school practice of a couple of hours a night will not cut it if you want to play college baseball. It takes a lot more.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing exposed to better talent has probably prepared me best for college baseball,\u201d said Hancock. \u201cTraveling and playing against better competition throughout the country has made me a lot better. Also there are a lot of scouts at the games in the summer, so I was exposed more as a player.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSeeing Will play I try to play with more confidence. And the way he plays like it\u2019s no big deal really affects my skill level,\u201d said Wewers.<\/p>\n
It is the bottom of the ninth with bases loaded. A hush rolls over the crowd as senior William Hancock steps up to the plate. This at-bat, however, was decided long before its time. \u201cIn the off-season I put in about ten hours a week doing actual baseball activity, plus a few hours doing baseball-specific…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":6953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[97,196],"tags":[143],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/liftoffnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/DSC_0878.jpg?fit=2993%2C2003&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3xfZw-1Nl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6903"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liftoffnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}