MOSES LAKE — First-year Moses Lake skipper Donnie Lindgren only has two speeds — fast and stop.

He is a man of perpetual motion, constantly jawing at the dugout, constantly coaching. Even with his team up 12-0 and his pitcher throwing a no-hitter in the CBBN regular-season finale last week against Eisenhower, the long-time Columbia Basin manager was working.

“Hey, let’s stay in the game. Not cheerleading, but let’s pick up our guys and make sure we’re paying attention.”

That energy has carried over to a baseball program went from fourth to first in the Columbia Basin Big Nine in a single season. The Moses Lake Chiefs (15-3, 13-3 CBBN) clinched the Big Nine league championship on April 30 with a no-hitter from Vance Alvarado and an offensive showcase from a team with six starters that were either playing freshmen or junior varsity baseball last year.

“My ultimate goal as a coach is to make Moses Lake baseball significant, not just in high school baseball, but produce players going on to the college level,” said Lindgren, who coached Big Bend Community College manager Jameson Lange when he was the Vikings manager. “It doesn’t matter what team we’re playing against. We have to play our best baseball and worry about ourselves. The way they act between the lines, that’s confidence, and that’s a great thing to have.”

The transformation has begun and the Chiefs, who were fourth a year ago, won their first Columbia Basin Big Nine conference title since 2014. The guys have bought into Lindgren’s energetic coaching style with the swag that says these young turks with just six seniors and a truck load of underclassmen talent are coming hard.

“The thing is, everybody on this team has either played for or against Donnie in the summer and we all know how he coaches,” senior right-hander Jordan Rios, who has teamed with Alvarado to form one of the best one-two pitching tandems in the Big Nine. “A lot of what we do in the summer is translating over to what we’re doing now.”

“I came up through the River Dogs (Babe Ruth League). What we’re doing here at Moses Lake High School is taking the guys that played (for Randy Boruff on the Blue team) and combining it with the guys that played for Donnie and Greco (Signorelli) on the younger team (River Dogs White) and the guys that played American Legion ball with the Spuds. We’ve all had success in the summer. Donnie’s brought us all together so we can have that success in high school.”

Senior catcher Cody Goodwin came through the American Legion program, the Walleyes and then the Spuds. So far, he has had a senior season to remember, including an eight-RBI game against Wenatchee.

“Playing summer ball really helps. Playing against higher level competition, against college players, I can bring that back into what I do in high school,” Goodwin said. “All of us are competing hard playing summer ball in different programs. We’ve got young guys playing big roles here, and I just like where it’s going.

“Winning the Big Nine means everything to me, now it’s onto district and state. We’re bringing the (4A first-place) state trophy back to Moses Lake.”

What makes this team interesting is that the younger players have been playing together since they were eight years old. Greco Signorelli, who’s a volunteer coach on the Chiefs staff, and Lindgren put together a team called the River Sharks and have kept them together every summer since.

As 15-year-olds, they won the Washington Babe Ruth state and Pacific Northwest region championships, then played in the Junior Babe Ruth World Series in Fargo, N.D. Last year as 16-year-olds, they qualified for the Senior Babe Ruth World Series at Johnson-O’Brien Stadium, where they reached the semifinals and finished third with the Columbia Basin River Dogs. Had they held onto a 2-1 lead going into the seventh inning in the opener against Texas, the brackets would have generated the first River Dog vs. River Dog semifinal in the World Series in program history.

The Moses Lake River Dog group that moved up to the Moses Lake varsity includes, Dominic Signorelli, Josh Williams, Dax Lindgren, Evan McLean, Vance Alvarado, Emmitt Tatum and Cody Alvarado.

“Eight years ago, when Greco and I first started with the River Sharks, I told the parents my ultimate goal was to keep these kids together as long as I could and to help Moses Lake (High School) become a great team,” he said. “Now we’re there and we’re still working at it.

“The one thing I’ve learned as I’ve matured as a coach is the kids have to have fun. It’s a baseball game, not a baseball job. I told them, I’m ready to go all the time. In order to not stress them out, I have to have fun too.

Lindgren is the offensive coordinator for the Chiefs’ football team and coached the basketball team over at Frontier Middle School, where he is a physical education instructor.

Rodney Harwood is a sports writer for the Columbia Basin Herald and can be reached at rharwood@columbiabasinherald.com