This year the Varsity baseball team is looking to make another run for the OK Red Conference title. But with key players  graduated, this year’s team is going to need to pull a trick from their hats to sweep the competition.

  After a successful season last year with a conference championship win, the Boys Varsity team is going for another trophy for the display case; however, with the majority of the seniors now graduated, the boys are going to have some big shoes to fill. Jr. Joe Sigler said, “Coming off a great season last year we are hoping to contend for another conference championship. We have a good, young core of guys and hope we can move on in the district tournament this year. Overall our team is very close. We are pretty much like brothers. We are also very young so there is a lot of room to grow. With our awesome coaching staff, we will get better very quickly.”

  With Gary Tomcala, Jacob Duckworth, and Joe Miller now off to college, the team is missing the experience that these players had when it came to pitching. Sr. Brennan Lane is positive that the young lineup of pitchers will do well. “The few seniors that we have are talented and good leaders. We have great pitching with Tyler Bosma, Sean Hoey, Joe Sigler, Andrew Gnegy, and Tucker Fritz. Although they don’t have overpowering speed on their fastball, they have good off-speed pitches. As long as all of our pitchers throw strikes, our pitching staff will dominate,” Lane said. With Jr. Joe Sigler being one of the players on the winning team last year, his experience will help the rest of the younger group of players dominate the competition when on the mound.

  Last year, the team had a very experienced batting lineup that played a huge role in winning the conference. That lineup included Sr. Trevor Fairfield who batted ninth the previous year, but is now batting first. Lane feels confident with the lineup this year and believes that they have an advantage over the competition. “Like last year, lineup seemingly has no holes. We have a few good power hitters in the middle of our lineup like Tyler Bosma, Bryce Thomas, Joe Sigler, and I. We are all complemented by great balanced hitters like Solomon Gray and Sean Hoey. Even our support players can hit well. As long as we keep strikeouts to a minimum, I think we will be a very potent offense.”

  Having a young outfield doesn’t seem to be a problem. Although Houston Bedford at right field and Tate Strobel at center have been replaced with a new group of guys, Jr. Sean Hoey believes they can compete with the rest of the schools in the district. “This year, the outfield is a young group. The outfielders this year played little to no time on the varsity team, but still show that they are experienced. They come up with catches that most experienced varsity outfielders would not be able to do.”

  With a great attitude, confidence, and a strong and talented bench, the team has faith that they will make it far this year. “We have a lot of talented players especially in important positions but what will be a real benefit for the team is the role players we have. Obviously, not everyone can start and play every day, so the attitudes of the role players can really affect the way a team performs. I think our team’s role players are not only talented but have great attitudes and work extremely hard. Even though they won’t make an impact every play, they work hard enough that when the time comes that we need them they won’t miss a beat and will be ready to go,” Lane said.

  “Our first 7 games were difficult team wise, but we came out 5-2 which shows that we can compete, and potentially could win the OK Red again this year,” Sr. Trevor Fairfield said. Catch our team take on Rockford High School on April 28, at 4:30 on the WO Baseball Diamond.