New year, same season
The baseball program has always rounded out last or close to last throughout most of its history in the GLAC conference.
A few spurts of glory appear every year or two in each decade as the program has only been able to win the district 5 times in the past 25 years, the last time coming in 2010.
The desire is there with a current group of players who really want to give the school something to cheer about.
Such as now sophomore, varsity player Aiden Trost who adheres to the saying, “baseball is life.”
The narrative this year will follow how the baseball team flipped the script and proved the naysayers wrong.
For the past couple of years, the program has been making its way up the polls, and has really taken a passion in being the underdog and surprising people.
Two years ago, varsity finished first in the conference for 2017, which ended a long drought of 7 years of not finishing first nor winning the district.
“I go and hit in the cages at the high school when they are open,” second baseman peter Loso said. “Usually, there is a few other guys there, and we take turns hitting and giving each other advice on how to improve. I usually show up for around and hour and put a lot of time and focus into my game.”
“Baseball is a really hard sport to play, but I think that we have enough athletes on the team and people who like to play the game that we can finish in the top of the league this year,” senior Eddie Koch thinks.
Sparking the enthusiasm in 2017, even though it didn’t win the district, the team still finished first in the conference and set the school record for wins in a season.
Team confidence high, the 2018 season felt hopeful as, “The all around mood was different, and we felt like we could actually win and have a good season,” third year varsity second baseman Peter Loso said.
While the season didn’t live up to expectation, varsity still finished second in the league and fought until the very end of the season as the majority of their games were decided by 1-2 runs and extra innings.
Senior Gage Place, described the 2018 season as “terrible” and hopes for a better one in the spring.
The problem that still lingers around the team for the past couple years is finding someone who wants to help the team win.
The varsity team had a coach for a short time. Industrial Arts teacher Wesley Perry signed on but resigned due to personal reasons. Perry declined to comment, but some players were a little distraught when they heard the news.
“It’s ridiculous. We need a leader,” senior second baseman and utility player Gage Place said, who’s heading into his third year on varsity.
The team was looking forward to the season and some think their hopes just fell, but for players such as Loso and senior catcher and first baseman Daniel Ballagh, they are taking responsibility for the season’s outcome.
“It really depends on who the next coach will be,” Ballagh said. “I think me and most of the team’s mindset should be the same as always and ready to put in some work this year.”
