Marshall Baker is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Basha High School for AZPreps365.com.

Basha baseball is no stranger to playing top tier talent, and head coach Jim Schilling believes his squad can compete with anyone in the country.

The preparation starts in the offseason, with Schilling bringing a unique approach to coaching by hiring a mental and psychological health coach. This hire highlights a different aspect of sports that often gets overlooked, gauging and prepping the mindsets of his student athletes.

“He’s been phenomenal for our guys,” said Schilling. “Teaching mental toughness, teaching how to deal with failure, just mindset stuff. We can play, but sometimes it’s the mental stuff that we focus on in the offseason”.

It’s this kind of coaching that has helped star senior pitchers Justin Chambers and Dallin Harrison get ready for their last season in a Bear uniform.

“Offseason is a grind, he told us every day and gave us a countdown how many days until our first game, and every single game after that is one game at a time,” said Chambers. “Just take it slow and play our game, play scrappy, be a honey badger”.

Harrison feels no different, with Schilling preparing them for what they call a “meat grinder,” playing tough games back-to-back and grinding out wins every week.

This offseason prep appears to be doing them well, with the Bears starting out their season 11-3 so far. They are now getting ready to head to Cary, N.C., to face some of the best teams in the country in the USA Baseball National High School Invitational.

“We just talked to them about how it’s going to help battle test us, we understand how good our region is but we feel like if we play our game we can win that thing,” said Schilling.

This mindset sticks with his players, with his seniors driving home the same points.

“We believe we have the chance to compete with anybody in the nation,” said Chambers.

There is a reason the Bears feel they can compete with anyone, and that’s because of their strong pitching and defense. They have no shortage of talent in their bullpen with both Chambers and Harrison committed to play baseball at the next level after high school, along with multiple other commits on the roster.

“We have a sub-two ERA through 14 games, we can pitch the heck out of it,” said Schilling.

With this year’s team being full of seniors, everyone is in high spirits for what the rest of the season has in store for them, including the coaches.

“We’re excited. We’re excited for this trip we’re about to go on, we’re 11-3, 9-1 in power points and we haven’t even played our best baseball yet,” said Schilling. “The vibes are really good, we have a bunch of good kids who are great teammates, they love each other and everybody is all in”.

Basha will play Huntington Beach High school by way of California on Wednesday, March 29 to kick off its loaded tournament schedule, looking to prove themselves on the national level.