Daily Pilot High School Athlete Of The Week:

Ryan Redding has to be ready to work on his handshake during baseball practice.

This one is more complicated than the one he’s used to being a part of the Estancia High program.

The exchanges he remembered the previous three years dealt with him lining up, then walking while holding his hand up to slap high-fives with the opposing team.

It came after a game, a time Redding more often than not had to congratulate the winning team.

So when Redding said first-year coach Matt Sorensen first stopped a practice before the season, yelling, “All right. You guys have 10 minutes to work on handshakes. Pick a partner,” Redding looked confused.

Celebrate? This was practice. Remember, Redding said he wasn’t used to the team praising itself.

“We were losing a lot,” he said, a good enough reason not to he thought.

But no one used the 10 minutes as a break. Sorensen forced every player to rehearse elaborate handshakes until they were as routine as a traditional right-handed one.

Redding teamed up with fellow senior Eddie Tomasek. The two childhood friends didn’t know what to do.

“It started off a little weak,” Redding said. “[We] watched a couple of videos on YouTube.com and picked out some things.”

Now the Redding-Tomasek exchange is as long as some of those clips on the popular video-sharing website.

Sorensen loves every minute of it, too.

Redding has played a vital role to the Eagles’ early season success with his hitting (.579 batting average, three triples), pitching (2.10 earned run average, 13 strikeouts in 10 innings) and base running (11 of 12 stolen bases).

Redding has been rejoicing with Tomasek a lot, quickly slapping hands, bumping forearms, saying any part of the body is fair game. The animated handshakes are part of Sorensen’s plan to instill confidence in players, build team moral, make baseball fun, all in hopes to turn Estancia (3-4) into a power.

Sooner rather than later in the Orange Coast League.

Big aspiration for sure. Redding, also a shortstop, believes it’s possible that the former Cal State Fullerton standout pitcher can take a last-place team in the Orange Coast League last season and transform it into a first-place one this season.