The first thing you notice about junior outfielder Jaxson Neckien of Westlake High is that he’s tall and slender at 6 feet 4 and 180 pounds. But in baseball terms, even more startling is that he just comes into the batter’s box with no gloves, no arm shields and no foot shields, so it doesn’t take him five minutes to take everything off to hand to the first-base coach when he gets a single.
Perhaps he’s protected by an invisible force field. Whatever it is, he’s been coming through for Westlake, which entered this week tied for first place in the Marmonte League with Oaks Christian.
“He’s old school,” coach Wally Barnett said.
Neckien has hit six home runs and is batting .429. Barnett considered him a good player last season but the Warriors were loaded with seniors. He got brought up from the JV team for the playoffs.
“I had high hopes for him this season and he’s really come through,” Barnett said.
All the growing pains Neckien went through appear to have gone away. Give him a bat and he’s ready. He’s hitting .517 over the past nine games.
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