Spring sports warm up

Josh Mesick, Sean Cork, Suh Koller, Emily Melbye, Noa Raasch, John Kinney, and Sara Tifft
March 26, 2014

Lacrosse trains youth

After losing to Cretin-Derham Hall in the section tournament last year, the girls lacrosse team members hope to improve its record. The addition of four senior captains will help the younger players, according to head coach Kyle Sweeney.

“One thing we’re focusing on is having our experienced players train our newer ones,” Sweeney said. “We’re trying to take advantage of our older players leadership skills.”

Senior captain Mary Pavia said she believes the team will benefit from the extra captain this year.

“We want everyone to have at least one captain they can look up to,” Pavia said. “Once we are comfortable playing together we’ll play better.”

The season starts March 31.

 

Tennis hopes for repeat

 After a winning season last year, the boys’ tennis team  hopes to take the conference championship for the fourth time, coach Carey Hermanson said.According to Hermanson the team is still very strong and has a good chance at taking the title of conference champions.“We have another really good chance to win conference,” she said. “They have really high standards and a lot of confidence.”

The team has won the conference title each year for the past three years.

According to senior captain Grahamm Kellogg, the late snowfall tends to affect the rest of the team’s performance.

“Playing indoors is a lot different than playing outside. Indoors you don’t have to worry about weather affecting your game,” Kellogg said.

Softball seeks outdoors

Beginning indoor practices March 10, the softball team looks forward to improving its game this upcoming season as well as getting outside, according to head coach Al Wachutka.

“Getting outside would be nice. I would really be hoping we could improve getting on base,” Wachutka said. “Our hitting needs to improve,   be a big item. I’d like to be able to work better as a team as far as offensively.”

Looking toward the beginning of the new season, senior captain Lauryn Myhra said she is enthusiastic to see the progress the team will make.

“I’m looking forward to see the teams evolve and improve from the beginning of the season to actual game time,” Myhra said.

 

Golf expands members

 On and off the green, the boys’ and girls’ golf teams are beginning their preparations for the upcoming season.While both seasons tee off March 17, head coach for the boys’ team Greg Goddard said he is excited about the fact that the team possesses a strong basis of multiple returning players.“We have a good core group of guys coming back,” Goddard said. “This means we have a good depth of team members.”

On the other hand, the girls’ team is expecting an increase in beginner players this year.

This will be head coach Rich Keith’s first year as golf coach, after resigning as track coach, which allows him an opportunity to reinforce positive golfing habits from the beginning.

“With the new players we will focus on constant training and working on proper mechanics, as well as teaching them the rules and edicts of golf,” Keith said.

 

Focus on team growth

 With head coach Rich Keith resigning from track and switching to girls’ golf, the boys’ track team prepares for the season under new head coach Stan McClure.According to McClure, the main focus of the season is to make changes that will draw new members.“My goal is to change the program to grow in numbers,” he said. “I want to bring the competitiveness back to the sport.”

The girls’ track team looks to improve upon last year after a losing season.

According to head coach Christine Tvrdik, the girls hope to expand its numbers.

“Our main goal is to increase our participation and interest in the sport,” she said.

 

Baseball lacks veterans

 This season, head coach Jim Nunn said the baseball team’s major obstacle is having a much younger team than last year.“Our goal for the season is to play the best we can. We’re a lot younger than last year, we only have five seniors,” Nunn said. “We are going to try and improve on our pitching, again being so young this year, we’re not sure yet where our strengths are. We’ll have many more young pitchers who will need to step up.”Because of the snow, the team will have to adjust to additional indoor practices.

“Until the snow is gone we will practice in the fieldhouse,” Nunn said. “We can’t take fly balls for our outfielders, but we’re used to two to three weeks being inside a gym.”