EASY RETURN: After year away, Jeanes reflects on return to Hulbert program
Last season, Hulbert pitching coach Lance Jeanes wasn’t supposed to coach baseball, but he just couldn’t help himself.
After the 2023 season, Jeanes stepped away from the program to help his family get settled into a new place and originally wasn’t planning on coaching any baseball. But when the former pitcher was approached to help the Hawthorne baseball team, he found a way to juggle his family and love for baseball.
“I went down to Hawthorne to help with family, but ended up helping them with baseball as well, so I didn’t get the year off,” Jeanes said. “I helped them get their baseball program back on track and helped my pawpaw and my dad get settled into Idabel.”
After the 2023 season was over, the Riders asked Jeanes if he was interested in rejoining the Riders, but he initially declined in the middle of the summer. Eventually, Jeanes finished getting his family settled in and contacted HHS to say he was ready to come back.
Hulbert baseball coach Shane Bevans wanted to bring Jeanes back in his first season with the Riders.
bevan (copy)
Shane Bevan
“I knew he was a great pitching coach and I wanted a guy I could bounce questions off of and get a real answer, not just a yes man,” Bevans said. “He has knowledge and a calmness about things when he talks to the kids; he keeps things on an even keel.”
Once everything was squared away, Jeanes decided it was time for him and his son Cody to return to the Riders.
“I’m a true believer that everything happens for a reason,” Jeanes said. “God put me on the path of helping young people and I feel in my heart that God led me back for [the team]. My strong connection with Hulbert is still as strong as can be. When I came back, it was like coming back home to familiar surroundings, just like where I grew up in the small town of Oilton. Our colors are even the same, so I feel like I’m home.”
One of Jeanes’ favorite strategies is making pitchers think of something outside of the game at hand to calm them down. It has worked for Hulbert pitchers like Ethan Thompson in the past.
But it has also worked for other pitchers when Jeanes was at Hawthorne. The team was one out away from clinching a tournament, and with a full moon overhead, Jeanes pointed it out to lighten the mood. One batter later, Hawthorne clinched the win.
“As a pitcher, I’m aware of the adrenaline and the emotions that go along with being out there on the mound,” Jeanes said. “Last year at Hawthorne, we were in the championship game in the Smithville Tournament I just pointed up at the moon and said, ‘Dang, that looks awesome.’ Everyone smiled and Ty Dicketts struck out the next batter to win the game.”
Before Jeanes left the Riders program, he said there was one player who reminded him of himself: Ethan Thompson. When Jeanes left the program, Thompson was just a sophomore but is blossoming into one of the best pitchers in the state as a senior.
Thompson delivers
Hulbert’s Ethan Thompson delivers to the plate. Thompson is one of the pitchers Lance Jeanes brought back to Hulbert to coach.
“He reminds me a lot of myself when I was younger. I was blessed to have a coach who believed in me and helped me to get to where I am today,” Jeanes said. “If it wasn’t for that coach, I probably wouldn’t be in the school system, helping other young people.”
Through the first seven games of the season, the Riders are 6-1 and are grooving well in all three aspects. So far, the Riders are averaging 8.2 runs a game and only allowing 3.8 runs a game.
Jeanes thinks the Riders have built a strong team.
“Coach Bevan has done a magnificent job coaching third; we make an excellent team. His timing is spot on,” Jeanes said. “Our team chemistry is a lot better. They are very unselfish one through nine. They’ve bought into everything we have done so far, and it has been fun.”
The Riders return to the diamond at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 27.
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