2009 Baseball Coach of the Year: Brett Kay

Brett Kay's first year as JSerra's baseball coach also was the Lions' first year in a league with Mater Dei, Santa Margarita and Servite.

JSerra went 9-13 overall that year, 2007, and finished in fourth place in the Trinity League with a 6-9 league record.

The Lions were 17-10 in '08, Kay's second season, and finished third in the Trinity at 8-7. They were eliminated in the first round of the CIF-Southern Section Division I playoffs.

This year, JSerra won the Trinity League championship with a 12-3 record. The Lions were 22-7 overall and got the school's first baseball playoff victory.

For a season the culminated a rapid rise with a young program in such a challenging league, Kay is the Register's Orange County coach of the year in baseball.

JSerra had five non-seniors in its regular batting order, and one of its top two pitchers was a non-senior, too, in 2009. The team played like a young team in the early going, and that was never more so than in a 20-5 loss to Foothill in JSerra's third game at season-opening Newport Elks Tournament.

The Lions also got off to a rough start in league play, with a 4-1 loss to Mater Dei in the Trinity opener. But they then shut out St. John Bosco of Bellflower, Servite and Santa Margarita in three straight league games, and a couple of games later beat Mater Dei for the first time. During spring break, JSerra went 5-0 in the Anaheim Lions Tournament, kept the momentum going by winning seven consecutive league games and finished No. 2, behind El Toro, in the final county media poll.

JSerra got that first playoff victory with a 3-2 triumph over Camarillo in Division I. The season ended in the second round, a 5-3 loss to Riverside Poly. Riverside Poly would go on to the Division I semifinals in which it would lose a close one, 1-0, to eventual division champion Capistrano Valley.

Kay knew, three years ago, what he had to do to make something like 2009 possible.

"The culture of the program had to be changed," said Kay, 29, who was an All-County catcher at Mater Dei before going on to Cal State Fullerton plus a few years in the minor leagues. "The most important thing was to instill in the players the right qualities about competition, the mental and spiritual aspects of it."

He is proud of the way the Lions, especially the seniors, rallied this year.

"They believed they could do it, and they believed in each other," Kay said. "And, really, that's what it's all about in a high school athletics environment."

Contact the writer: sfryer@ocregister.com