Coach Kevin Torres has officially stepped down from the head coaching position for Sundown Roughneck Baseball.
Coach Torres been coaching the Roughnecks for 14 years and he has been coaching for a total of 21 years. He ended this last season with a record of 25-7, and ended the post-season in the regional round of the playoffs.
“It was a good season, we started off the season 14-0, then got into district play where our first loss came to New Home who of course went on to state,” said Coach Torres. “We dropped one in Smyer, and lost two very close games to Ropes, but we were 25-7 on the season which was the most wins in school history. We set a school record and got back to the regional round so it was a good season.”
The team had seven All-District players in Jaxon Rodriguez, Koy Torres, Hunter Tindol, Jeffery Rodriguez, Rian Rose, Isaac Lopez, and Jaryan Flores.
With all this help Coach Torres says there were a few leaders that helped the team and he thinks that is why they had a step up in team production and team morale.
“For the last several years, our graduating senior class of Koy, Jeffery, and Hunter have been our leadership, and they’ve had to be leaders pretty much since their sophomore year since they didn’t get to play 2020 due to COVID-19” explained Coach Torres.
The leadership on the team was unmatched as they had three different students with their own unique leadership qualities.
“They were our leaders, they had three different types of leadership. Koy was the type of kid who wants to teach you and show you things, Hunter is the teaching guy, and Jeffery was the guy to get on to people if it was needed,” said Coach Torres. “We also had a very good junior in Jaxon Rodriguez; he had a really great season, which I think allowed us to take another step up this year.”
When asked about what he thought about his students winning awards he was pretty excited. He thinks they should have gotten better than they did because of their good run they had and because of their good postseason run.
“I think when you win ball games then the accolades come because it is a team sport,” said Coach Torres. “I felt like some of our kids should’ve gotten some better accolades; I think the postseason proved that with a couple of series wins, but we’ve had some really good players. I think the things we do well here at Sundown is we develop players and teach them so well. When they’re ready to take that next step they are ready because of our coaching staff.”
Coach Torres had an opportunity that most coaches wish they had in coaching their son. He coached his son up until this year when Torres had graduated. His son Torres received All-District First Team Infield honors along with six of his teammates. When asked about the benefits of his job, the main one was that it was all mostly family related and something they could all be a part of and see their family grow.
“It was great getting to coach Koy, just seeing him as a little kid in the dugout, then getting to coach him. I couldn’t imagine if I would have still coached softball and not have gotten to have coach him and missed his games because of the way softball and baseball schedules are,” explained Coach Torres. “If softball plays away then baseball is at home and vice versa. I’m very family oriented, my wife takes care of the press box, Koy’s growing up and getting to learn the system has ben great.”
Coach Torres says he wouldn’t have been able to do everything that he has without his coaching staff that he’s been with. Assistant Coach Ron Holson has been his right hand man for some time now that they’re chemistry between the two is almost unmatched.
This year they had a third coach to learn and help out with baseball, Tanner Clark, and he will be the assistant coach that comes in and takes over after Coach Torres is gone.
“My main assistant has been Ron Holson, and it’s kind of like having a grandpa on staff. He’s awesome with the kids, he’s hard on them and takes care of the discipline part of it, so I don’t really have to mess with it too much,” said Coach Torres. “I think when the kids know they messed up is when I have to get involved in it. He coaches first base when we’re hitting, when I’m on third and our chemistry has gotten so good that we won’t even communicate. I’ll just leave it to him and he’ll decide on whether to be aggressive or not and more times than not he makes the right decision, which is nice. Tanner is a younger coach and it’s nice to have a younger arm over in the batting cages, and he’s a very knowledgeable. I think he learned quite a bit of baseball from this past year. It was nice having that third set of eyes, he’s going to continue to be the assistant baseball coach under the next guy. I call him this all the time, but he is Sundowns best kept secret.”
Coach Torres isn’t worried about Sundown baseball as it is going to be in good hands and the fact that it has always been one of the best. Sundown is one of the only teams that has been in the playoffs every year since he has been there.
“There’s a lot of pressure on the baseball program, but it is a lot of good pressure,” said Torres.” Our staff, our community and our administration are all right behind us in everything we do.”
Coach Torres has a lot of ties with Sundown and its community, so he will stay as the credit recovery faculty. Coach is somewhat involved with the Sundown Little League and helping them out this week as Sundown is hosting the State tournament. Kevin Torres will still be helping out in the community to make sure it is an easy transition for him and the school.
He will still be keeping up with the program because of the long ties he has built with it and because he’s worked on the field ever since ‘09 when he took over.