DAILY PILOT HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETE OF THE WEEK:

Sean Vogel missed out on his first chance to meet Sage Hill School’s new baseball coach.

Back in early February, when the rest of the players tried to make a good impression on Andy Berglund, Vogel was out sick.

What a way to start a sophomore season, unfamiliar with the new skipper. He knew just a name, no face, no handshake. The last time Vogel shook a new coach’s hand, the coach left after one year.

One week after the first team meeting, Vogel finally introduced himself to Berglund, a first-year varsity head coach. On the field, the perfect place to show Berglund who he was.

Vogel left his mark. Berglund spotted him right away, dubbing him a can’t-miss player.

As a leadoff man, everyone notices Vogel. No place to hide, the start of the game offensively begins with No. 15.

Get on with a hit, or walk, by whatever means necessary. Vogel has accomplished that in an alarming rate for the Lightning, reaching base 31 times in 44 at-bats.

The numbers, .477 batting average, 12 runs batted in, three doubles, 20 runs, and a .564 on-base percentage, drastically much better than last season.

But the real change to Vogel this season from last season is simple.

“We are winning,” said Vogel, a shortstop and pitcher. “We’ve never won much in baseball. Coach told us we were going to be really good.”

The Lightning are this season. They’ve reached an unprecedented place, first place in the Academy League. Unbelievable, the players thought so way before taking a 7-1 league record into today’s home game against Whitney at 3:15 p.m.

Seven straight league wins since opening league play by dropping a game to perennial champion Oxford Academy. Now the Lightning are playing like champs, beating Oxford twice last week to take the series for the first time in school history.

Oxford is one game back with seven left thanks to Vogel. He picked up the two victories in relief against the Patriots, and in the second game he knocked in the game-winning run on a walk-off single to right field, lifting Sage Hill to a 4-3 victory.

Vogel admits not everyone believed in this quick turnaround.

“For some of the seniors this is their [third] coach in four years, so having a new coach practically every year makes things difficult,” he said. “Our last coach just kind of disappeared. It was kind of weird.”

Almost as strange as the new coach’s baseball background.

Sweden and Australia are a couple of countries where Berglund played and taught baseball the last five years. They aren’t as foreign you’d like to believe. Pancakes and Down Under, words easily associated with Sage Hill in the past.

Sage Hill often got pancaked during a 9-12, 7-8 season in 2007, allowing double-digit runs five times, and it finished close to the bottom of the league standings in fourth place.

Vogel has played a vital role in the breakthrough season in which the Lightning (9-4) have already matched last year’s overall win total. Vogel credits the three seniors, pitcher Travis Duncan, outfielders JJ Beruldsen and Tom Multari, for their leadership.

Like most coaches, Berglund attributes the success to solid defense and pitching. Those two factors should push the Lightning to their first playoff appearance since 2004.

“We eliminated our errors, which killed us,” Berglund said. “Our worst game of the year is the one where we had seven errors against Windward [on March 26]. I was in tears.

“[We] just have to try to keep rolling. We’ve really come together.”

Sage Hill sure has and Vogel’s made sure he hasn’t missed out on all the fun.

DAVID CARRILLO PEÑALOZA may be reached at (714) 966-4612 or at [email protected].