Baseball will host and compete in the Lewisville-Hebron Tournament March 7-9.

“We’re hosting a third tournament here and we’ll play five games and that really will be the final tune-up before our district begins,” baseball coach Stephen Stone said.

Through Feb. 28 to March 2, baseball was supposed to compete at the Clear Creek Tournament in Houston, but after rain caused the baseball team to miss a tournament, the team competed in a local tournament.

“[Out of town tournaments] really serves two purposes,” Stone said. “It helps us get prepared for district, but it also kind of helps us bond as a team because we get spend more time with each other on the bus and the hotel and then at the game, so it’s always a good weekend for us to get prepared for the season and also to bond.”

Although both of these tournaments count on the record, they don’t factor into determining whether the team gets to playoffs. To get to playoffs, the team has to rank in the top four out of the eight teams in district, which starts on March 12.

“Our goal is to get to the playoffs, and once we get there, to do a little damage,” Stone said.

For the past two years, baseball has missed the playoffs, but before that, they had made it four times consecutively. Junior first baseman and pitcher Casey DeLoach said the team has a better chance of making it to the playoffs this year.

“From what I saw last year, I think we’re definitely on a better track,” DeLoach said. “We definitely have a better team than we did last year. We have a lot of young talent this year. A lot of good young talent that can help us out in the long run.”

Once district starts, baseball will compete every Thursday and Friday until they play each team twice. There are eight teams in district including, Nimitz, Coppell, Marcus, MacArthur, Flower Mound and Irving High School.

“For me, I just definitely want the team to go to playoffs and go far,” senior pitcher and outfielder Aiden Davis said. “But most importantly, we just want to have fun and have a good year with our friends. They’re pretty much our family.”