With no high school baseball being played this spring because of COVID-19, Spye Turnbeaugh has been forced to spend more time upstairs in his spare hours playing Major League Baseball video games.

Turnbeaugh is a senior who was a pitcher at Arapahoe High School and has signed to continue playing at Colorado Mesa. But with the Colorado High School Activities spring sports season canceled, he’s had to make adjustments.

“I have school still so I make sure I have all my work done,” he explained. “Once I have gotten everything done and make sure my days are good, I’ll go upstairs to workout in my little gym that I have in my dad’s house. I will throw outside and play basketball in my back yard and then I miss baseball so much I will play video games. It’s basically MLB. You can build your own teams and play other people.

“I’m missing baseball a lot. I sure do miss it.”

Coach’s take:

`Spye is a hard worker who wants to play every day. He was our top pitcher but he was not satisfied with that. He is a fierce competitor. There have been times when I go to the mound and I can just see the fire in his eyes saying, `don’t you dare take me out.’ Which is something you want in your guys. Spye has that.’

Jim Dollaghan,

Arapahoe baseball coach

Q&A with Turnbeaugh

What has been the hardest part about missing your senior season?

For me it was the chance of other seniors like me to finish off their baseball career. For me, I’m lucky and blessed to be able to continue my career. But this was their last shots for some of these kids besides maybe summer or some club baseball. It’s disappointing how hard some of my teammates have worked to get their spot on varsity and it hurts to see their work go down the drain a little bit.

What would your goals have been for the season?

My big goal was to have fun and make sure everybody was enjoying the game and working hard to win, of course. I guess a personal goal for me this spring would have been to become the hitter I was last year. Last year once I got my chance to hit, the first hit I got was a home run. I was so proud that I was second on the team in batting average. I wanted to become a leader in hitting and pitching, of course.

How does missing the season affect your college plans if at all?

It really affected colleges from a financial standpoint, but for me, just not being able to show them what I have. Last year they saw my stats and knew what they were going to get, but I really wanted to prove it and come in and maybe immediately start.