Often overshadowed by his teammates during his freshman year at Bakersfield College, second baseman Elijah Trail is now the clear-cut leader of his team’s offense in 2012.
Trail credits his turnaround from last season to a conversation he had with outfield coach Sean Alexander before the year started, in which Alexander told him, “Regardless of your stats, just go out and have fun and do what you can to help the team win.”
“That’s been the only thing in my sights since,” Trail said. “I just realized that there are bigger things than just myself.”
Trail has lit up opposing pitchers so far this season and leads his team in nearly every batting statistic, including a batting average of .387 and a conference-leading four home runs.
Coach Tim Painton appreciated Trail’s consistent production as the rest of the team’s offense went through growing pains to begin the season.
“He has been consistent since day one,” Painton said.
Painton said that Trail showed signs as a freshman of the dominant player that he’s been so far this year, but an inadequate mental approach toward the game hampered his production.
“We sat down and talked about a mental approach and being consistent on a day-to-day basis,” Painton said. “He’s put a lot of time and effort into developing that.”
Painton said that working on swing mechanics and developing a proper routine has helped Trail tremendously over the past year.
“As he’s done that, we have seen the benefit of his hard work,” he said. “He’s put in a lot of hard work into making the adjustments that needed to be made.”
Trail agrees that maturity played a big part in his disappointing freshman year.
“My maturity level has changed since last season, but I’ve been able to make the game easier on myself,” Trail said. “Because the game is hard enough as it is.”
But now, Trail has his team on the fast track to the playoffs and to his ultimate goal for his team: the Final Four.
“I don’t know where I’m going after this, but right now I’m just focusing on this team and what we have to do to get to the ultimate goal, and that’s the Final Four.
“We’ve taken it upon ourselves,” he said. “That’s where we want to get to.”
Trail’s success has garnered his attention from Division-I scouts, who can often be seen scattered around the crowd at BC home games, but Trail says he tries to not look ahead.
“To be honest, it’s just a little confidence thing,” he said. “But at the same time you have to think about the game like it’s a new day and anything can happen. I just try to leave that behind and focus on this team and what we are doing, not really what is going to happen next year.”