If the Justin-Siena baseball team needs somebody to get on base or make a defensive play at a crucial moment this spring, Tyler Mitchell might be one of the Braves’ best bets.

The senior has learned how to deal with pressure in his year-round sport of rodeo, where he gets only one chance, or very little time, to make something happen.

“There’s a lot of pressure, probably more than in baseball,” Mitchell said of his September-to-June rodeo schedule, which he’s been juggling with baseball since his freshman year. “It’s like going up in the ninth inning with two outs and two strikes. It’s now or never. You get this chance and this chance only to do this.”

He was referring to the two “go-rounds” he gets in each weekend’s rodeo competition for each of his events — bronc riding, steer wrestling, team roping and calf roping.

Mitchell has been making plenty of things happen on the California High School Rodeo Association circuit this season, winning the bronc riding event in five of the last six District 2 weekend rodeos. The district stretches to the Oregon border, including Napa, Marin, Sonoma, Lake, Mendocino, Del Norte and Humboldt counties.

The son of Christina and John Mitchell of Napa started at second base last season and mostly batted in the No. 9 spot for Justin-Siena.

“I was not the strongest hitter, but I got on and scored a lot,” he said.

As soon as each baseball practice was over at 5:30 p.m., Mitchell would head up to the Pope Valley ranch of his grandparents, Dave and Betty Heide, and practice until “8:30 or 9 or sometimes later” on their lighted grounds by himself or with some rodeo friends.

While baseball is something he’s played since he was at T-Ball age, rodeo gives Mitchell a chance to do something that sets him apart.

“It’s a sport that not everybody knows and not everybody can do,” he said. “It weeds itself down to the people who can naturally do rodeo. It’s another form of competition and I’m a competitive person, so it’s exciting.”

Whether he’s roping a calf’s horns in one try, wrestling a steer to the ground as quickly as possible or trying to stay on a bucking bronc the minimum 8 seconds, it’s all about controlling what he can control. Conquering unpredictable animals has forced Mitchell to constantly battle a fear of failure.

“I used to have a little nick on my shoulder always telling me I can’t do it, but it’s not there as much anymore because in rodeo (failure) is always there,” he said. “I’ve learned to act in the moment.

“Everything’s got to go right to put a winning time together. So many small things can go wrong when you only have 30 seconds or less, or as much as 8 seconds.”

Santa Rosa resident Larry Morrison, who was the CHSRA District 2 president for two years, said Mitchell hardly seems unsure before he hops on a bucking animal. Morrison said he always tells him to look for him on the safety horse that plucks a rider from a bronco after a successful 8-second ride.

“He tells me every time he goes out there, ‘Look for that pickup horse — I’m pretty sure I’ll make the whistle.’ That’s just his confidence,” Morrison said. “He always has a smile on his face. He seems like a real happy-go-lucky kid who wants to give it 100 percent every time.”

In Mitchell’s first full season as a sophomore, he was District 2’s rookie all-around champion and reserve all-around champion — the latter being second place among all 50 or 60 competitors, not just rookies. He placed second overall in bronc riding and steer wrestling, and fifth in team roping last season.

“I’ve had to work at it,” he said. “I’m always on a learning curve. I never stop learning.”

Mitchell, who turns 18 on June 23, will try to give himself a birthday present at this year’s state finals, scheduled June 18-25 in Bishop. At the 2007 state finals, he finished seventh in saddle bronc and 13th in steer wrestling.

In March, Mitchell will compete in the “Challenge of Champions,” an all-star competition in Plymouth where the top three cowboys in each event battle other districts’ top three in each event.

Though he doesn’t like to think he’s spreading himself thin by playing baseball during the second half of each rodeo season, Mitchell does admit that it’s hard to compete against rodeo-only athletes who are also home-schooled.

“They get done with school at 9:30 or 10 in the morning and practice all day,” he said enviously.

If Justin-Siena plays baseball on a Saturday when Mitchell has a rodeo, he is forced to do all of his go-rounds on the Sunday, instead of half of them Saturday like the others.

“I’ll be running around back and forth, but it keeps me on my toes,” he said. “I like to be busy.”

Mitchell said there are other boys in high school rodeo who have to juggle it with another sport, such as football players and wrestlers. He said Justin-Siena coach Scott Wright supports his love of rodeo, though Mitchell doesn’t test his coach by skipping practices.

“Baseball comes first because it’s a school sport and my team needs me to be there,” he said.

Mitchell doesn’t limit himself to District 2 events.

“I won the bronc riding in Clements a month ago,” he said. “I do other (districts’ rodeos) just to ride different horses,” he said. “A lot of times at our district’s rodeos, I know the horses or who owns them, so it’s not as challenging.”

Mitchell said his grandfather was a very successful steer wrestler in his youth and that his father won state titles in bronc riding and also competed at the national level while at Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa.

He said his father helped him stick with rodeo.

“I kinda gave up on it right at the beginning. It was too scary,” he recalled. “Then toward the middle of my sophomore year, I started watching more rodeos on TV and started wanting to do it again. I asked my dad if we could get a new horse, and we got a couple of new horses.”

He still remember his first scary ride at a rodeo in Red Bluff.

“(The horse) would just jump up high and flail all over,” he recalled. “Right as the 8-second buzzer went off (at the end of the ride), I got trapped under its side and it pulled my boot off when it took off running.”

“I snowboard and stuff and have experienced my fair share of bruises and bumps, but it’s as bad as it can get when you get on a horse. At that Clements rodeo, I was on a big white horse and had just made it to 8 seconds when the guys tried to help me get off the horse. I got thrown over the front and hit my back on the bucking chute.

“I’ve heard of a lot of people getting hurt pretty bad, but I haven’t really been hurt bad. One time in my sophomore year I got bucked off and landed on my side and pinched a nerve in my back. I had trouble for a month laying in bed in certain positions, but that’s about as bad as it’s been.”

Mitchell would like to continue his rodeo career at the college level, and Morrison thinks he’ll be successful.

“I have no doubt he will go to college and he will do very well in saddle bronc riding,” Morrison said, adding that Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, University of Nevada-Las Vegas and Fresno State all have top-notch rodeo teams, along with junior colleges such as Feather River and Lassen.

Mitchell believes his body type will help him be successful in college.

“For the saddle bronc, it’s good if your legs are the same length as your upper body, which mine are, and a smaller guy like me can rely on technique,” he explained.

While bronc riding is popular because of the agility involved, Mitchell is proud of his improvement in steer wrestling, which he said takes more strength than some people might think.

“I have to pick 250-pound, 300-pound calves up in the air and make sure they stay down. Some steer wrestlers have to lift 500- or 700-pound steers,” he said. “If you get your technique perfect, you can throw a steer without any effort, even pick them up off their feet.

“It’s a neat feeling when everything goes right.”