CHIMACUM — Imagine coaching your son, teaching him how to throw and catch and hit, how to be a good baseball player and compete to win.
Then imagine wanting to beat him and his team.
Quilcene baseball coach Darrin Dotson was living all of that Friday when the Rangers faced Chimacum, which features his son, sophomore Lane Dotson.
And while it may have been a bit strange, it wasn’t too painful.
“We have a ritual that we do before every game, it’s a combination of a handshake and a hug, and we did that,” Darrin Dotson said Monday.
“And I said, ‘Have a good game, buddy, and I’m proud of you.’”
Said Lane Dotson, “He told me to play my best, to do what I do, and I told him the same thing.”
It did make the situation a bit awkward that Lane started on the mound for the Cowboys, which meant that he would be directly responsible for how well Quilcene played.
“He’s got to have an off-day in order for us to succeed,” Darrin said.
Lane said pitching made the game tougher for him, too.
“When you’re on the mound . . . it’s more of a personal thing,” he said.
“You’re the one doing most of the work out there, either striking out batters or letting them get hits. It’s up to me.”
Lane pitched three innings as the Cowboys held off the Rangers 9-5.
Lane, an All-Peninsula honoree as a freshman in 2014 and Chimacum’s No. 1 pitcher this year, faced Klahowya last Monday, and the schedule happened to line up so that his next start would come against Quilcene.
“I asked him earlier in the week how he’d feel about that,” Cowboys coach Andy Lingle said.
“He said that he’d be ready to go.”
And that’s all Lingle had to say to Lane last week about facing Darrin and Quilcene.
“I think he was just really excited to face his dad’s team. I think that he was really pumped up for it,” Lingle said.
“It was the first time that he’s faced his dad in a scenario like that. It was a good setting, all around.”
And overall, it was a pleasant occasion for both sides, not nearly as bad as it might seem.
“It was a new experience for me. It’s the first time I got to face my old man,” Lane Dotson said.
“I’m glad I got the opportunity.”
Good feelings remained after the game, even for the losing team.
“It was a fun competition, it was nonleague,” Darrin Dotson said.
“I’m proud of my son. He did what he was supposed to do.”
Darrin also was proud of his team. The Class 1B Rangers hung with the 1A Cowboys, despite missing two starters and playing four eighth-graders in tough, windy conditions.
Lane was impressed, too.
“Quilcene’s a good team. I told him that he coached them well. I told him I was proud of him,” Lane Dotson said of his postgame discussion with his dad.
“I was [especially] proud of those eighth-graders for hanging in there.”
By the way, Darrin Dotson has been on the other side of this scenario before
Long story short, his parents divorced and he and his brother relocated with their mother.
The boys’ new school, Tahoma, was in the same league as Mount Rainier, where their dad taught and coached.
So both brothers ended up playing against their dad.
“Last Friday took me full circle,” Darrin said.
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Sports Editor Lee Horton can be reached at 360-417-3525 or at lhorton@peninsuladailynews.com.
