DN grad takes over as baseball coach

Warriors open season on Saturday

Jared Wells at a recent practice: “I love this sport and I enjoy teaching this game.” Del Norte Triplicate/Bryant Anderson

“We’re looking good,” he said. “We got a lot of players coming back this year, so I think we got a solid team in place.”

This is the first year as head coach for Wells, who graduated from Del Norte in 1997.

He replaces longtime coach Pablo Lorenzi.

Wells, a teacher at Uncharted Shores Academy, previously coached baseball at the middle school level when he lived in Hawaii. He also taught in Hawaii in both high school and middle school.

For Wells, it’s great to be back to the place he graduated from high school.

“I feel that it’s a great opportunity,” he said. “It’s great to return and put down some roots here.”

The season begins a little bit earlier than normal this season with the Warriors facing Sonoma Valley in Eureka on Saturday. The second game will be almost three weeks later.

 While performing well on the baseball field is important, Wells said his emphasis is on helping his players develop into good citizens. And that means maintaining their grades — after all, he said, he’s a teacher.

“We want to teach them baseball as well as having good team character,” he said. “I love this sport and I enjoy teaching this game.”

While practices have been occurring for only a few weeks, Wells likes the combination of newcomers and veterans the team has this year and believes the Warriors will be competitive.

Last year, the Warriors missed the playoffs for the first time in a few seasons, going  4-8 in the Big 5 Conferrence and 8-11 overall.