New expectations for leadership

Tryouts to give practice and sort softball teams

Emily Tifft

Head coach Al Wachutka said his goals for the softball team doesn’t just entail a successful start, but a successful season.

In order for this to happen, all players need to perform well during tryouts, Wachutka said.

Wachutka said tryouts are the beginning of the team’s season, where players can show off their skills.

“Tryouts are three days long. I will decide on teams and then there will still be movement after that because people make mistakes and injuries come into play,” Wachutka said.

Wachutka said the players perform activities that mimic what they do during their games.

“We look at throwing, hitting and catching skills because those are the kinds of things you do in games,” Wachutka said.

Wachutka said there are three teams this year: varsity, junior varsity and ninth grade.

The ninth grade team will consist of players in grades seven through nine. Anyone can tryout for the other teams.

Varsity player and junior Shea Swanson said she has high hopes and prosperous goals for this upcoming season because of new leadership and more personalized coaching.

“I think we will do a lot better than our last season. We started off really strong and then somewhere it started to go downhill,” Swanson said. “Hopefully this season we have more wins than losses.”

According to Wachutka, the new conference will not influence the team’s performance to a high extent.

“I expect them to compete more effectively than they have in the past against more of our opponents,” Wachutka said.

The season officially started March 9 with the beginning of tryouts.