Throughout the baseball season, upperclassmen have stepped up to the plate to overcome the challenges they face every season. Under the strong leadership of the eight seniors and four juniors on the varsity team, Head Coach Dan O’Leary couldn’t name any specific captains on the 20-person team.
“If I had to name captains, there would be 11 of them,” O’Leary said. “We have a solid core of upperclassmen, most of whom assume a strong leadership, as captains would.”
The upperclassmen maintain team-wide focus and encourage the team to keep playing, without regard to the score.
“[The upperclassmen lead] by keeping the guys up and focused, by reminding each other and the whole team that we are never out of any game, as long as we battle and believe and by performing on the field and picking teammates up after an error or unsuccessful at bat,” O’Leary said.
In the past two years, the current upperclassmen contributed to what was considered to be a younger team.
“We have definitely been a young squad over the past several years, and have gone through some tough growing pains and maturity issues. I believe we are better and stronger for it. No one likes to lose, but I believe we’ve gained perspective from it, and more importantly, we’ve learned how to battle and never give up,” O’Leary said.
As a younger team last year, the baseball team lost seven games by an overall difference of nine runs; the team lost five of those games by one run and the other two games by two runs. The team’s goal is to improve themselves so they would win the “close-call” games that they faced so often last season.
“In the offseason, we’ve worked real hard on hitting and pitching, ‘cause most games come in the [YMCA] where we can’t get a run in, like we leave [a] run on base,” Junior Zach Greene said. “Now we’re just a little more fluid in our swings and everything.”
This season, under the leadership of the upperclassmen, the team won seven games as of April 25. These games include a 6-5 win against Fort Cherry on April 13, a 18-4 win against Northgate on April 20 and a 5-3 win against Burgettstown on April 22.
The team also has a goal to achieve the section title this year. According to O’Leary, if the team did win the seven games they lost last year, the season record would have been 11-3 instead of 4-10, which would have given them a better chance at the section title. As of April 25, the varsity team section record is 6-4, with their overall record being 7-7.