As the dust settles and the diamond begins to clear up, boys baseball prepares for what will prove to be an exciting season. This year the team has many goals they plan to achieve, one of which is to not only win back-to-back conference championships, but to also win a regional championship.
Head varsity baseball coach and business teacher, Christopher Macahon, has high expectations for the team this year, as they have a group of returning starters who are also joined with a talented junior class, a group that may help them accomplish their goals this season.
“We have a nice group of seniors who are returning from last year’s team that won the CSL North and had some good playing time as juniors, we also have a nice group of juniors as well that supplement that. Our goals are to win the CSL North again and if we can take it a step further and win a regional championship for the first time since 2012,” Macahon said.
This will be Macahon’s first year as the varsity head coach, which he and the players are very excited about. Senior Maddux Niedermaier believes that they are improving partially due to Macahon and their increased amount of practices.
“He [Macahon] brings a newer perspective and cares a lot more considering it’s his first year. We’re having more practices and we’re getting much better,” Niedermaier said.
Adapting to a new head coach hasn’t been a problem for many of these guys. Senior, Teddy Schroeder, mentioned how it’s been easy to adapt to a new head coach, since many of them had previously been coached by Macahon at the junior-varsity level.
“Almost every player on our team this year has had Macahon as a coach during JV, so we’ve all adapted very quickly,” Schroeder said.
Aside from a new coach, this team also has a very talented senior class, which consists of seven seniors already committed to play in college, many of which can play multiple positions on the field and who have worked tirelessly this off-season to improve their craft.
“We have a very special group of guys and already seven collegiate commits so that says something already. We have guys who can play multiple positions very well and the commitment these guys have put in the off season is very impressive, too,” Schroeder said.
In addition to this senior class being the backbone of this team, they also serve as mentors for the younger guys who will take over the team once they are gone.
“I’m excited for this junior class, they have a really good senior class to look up to and to learn from and to understand the flow of the varsity game and the varsity expectations and I think that will pay dividends to them as they take the reigns going into next year and hopefully that cycle continues,” Macahon said.
Tryouts take place on Monday, March 3, and Tuesday, March 4, on the baseball field.
