With football being well over and basketball in the playoffs, many are preparing for their spring sports. Baseball is one that many are looking forward to. Last year we had a record of 9-15. We had five seniors on the team last year who had big roles on the team. Over the offseason, the team suffered a big loss. During basketball season, Kolton Vogelsburg suffered an ACL and MCL injury, causing him to miss the upcoming baseball season. With all of these losses, we also have some new incoming players and players returning from injury. We also have a lot of varsity players and contributors coming back. There are two first-team all-conference players and one honorable-mention all-conference player coming back. In total, there are 15 varsity letter winners coming back for this season, which is a recipe for success.
This year is also the first year in which the Six Rivers West and East are combining and becoming the Six Rivers Conference. This means our conference is now made up of Argyle/Blackhawk, Barnveld, Belmont, Highland, Monticello/Albany, Pecatonica, Potosi/Cassville, River Ridge, and Shullsburg/Benton. With this new Conference Alignment, it will be hard to be a top team in the conference, and it will be more difficult to have a winning season due to the higher level of competition and having to play each team twice.
I interviewed three senior baseball players about this upcoming season and talked about last season. I interviewed Ryan Stoney, Aidan Uppena, and Isaiah Groom. Ryan and Aidan have been playing baseball their whole life, and Isaiah started playing in middle school. All three of these boys say they love playing baseball and can't wait for the season to start. When asked about how they felt about last season all of the boys said it felt like they all had unfinished business. Ryan says “We came up short. We should have won more games and it left a bad taste in all of our mouths.” But, he also said “it still felt good winning some games later on in the season and making it to the second round of the playoffs.¨
Aidan and Ryan both say that they can see a difference in the way that people are preparing for the season. Ryan said “A lot more people have been coming to open gyms this year, a lot more than past years.” They said that playing summer baseball this past summer has really helped them prepare for this season. Isaiah says, “Playing summer baseball helped me out significantly, it got me a lot more reps and helped me be a better player. It also gave me a lot of confidence coming into the season.”
They are expecting a great season this year. Ryan Stoney says, “In open gyms, we are looking pretty good, and if I had to predict where we will lie in conference, I think we will end up in second.” Isaiah and Aidan had very similar predictions, both saying we will be well over .500 and hopefully around 15 or 20 wins.
All of the boys agreed that they are excited to play and win. But they are also excited to make memories with each other playing one of their favorite sports, to see how far they can go in the playoffs, and how much they will improve throughout the season.