Baseball, a sport that’s been around for a long time, is young for the Spartans this year with regard to age. In a program with 25 players on either the varsity or JV team, 20 of them are sophomores or younger as they look to grow this year.
And they are experiencing some growing pains. With a season start of 0-5, the Spartans are yet to win a game, home or away. Despite this, catcher, pitcher, and third baseman James Welsh has a positive outlook: “I think we’re going to start winning some games here. We’ve cleaned up our fielding, and if we can fix our hitting, we’re gonna be a really good team,” Welsh said.
Captain Isak Bildtsen agrees: “I think our team culture is gonna be a lot better this year. I know the team is very close-knit and we’re all really good friends on the team,” Bildtsen said. “Last year, the season was rough and emotions were high, with some players making the culture difficult.”
The kids on the team are really cool. I really enjoy being in the dugout and talking to them, having fun, messing around. And that’s one of my favorite things about baseball.
— Isak Bildtsen
Although some players are new to the team, Bildtsen said these players bring a lot of skill: “Yeah, new kids coming in, a lot of underclassmen who have played a lot of AAA baseball.”
Specifically, the team looks to improve their hitting and communication as the season progresses.
One aspect Welsh thinks has seen marked improvement already is eliminating errors. “Seeing our defense improve has been really impressive,” he said. “From the beginning of the season, where we’re making four or five errors a game to now where our last game we had zero it’s really been an incredible improvement.”
Regarding eliminating errors, Bildtsen thinks that in the eyes of Head Coach Rob Thompson, physical errors are okay, but mental mistakes are not. “[Thompson] really doesn’t like errors. […] He really likes when players are mentally in the game and engaged,” Bildtsen said.
Coaches play a pivotal role in the team’s growth and development. Welsh appreciates that the coaches value improvement over flawlessness and thinks the coaching style this spring has been helpful. “[The coaches] want us to have a good time but they also understand we want to win.” Welsh said. “They’re always pushing us to do better. But they also understand that we’re not perfect and their goal is for us to get better, not for us to be perfect necessarily.”
First-year pitcher Gus Hembre also attributes the captains’ leadership to the team’s culture. “Griffin, Isak, and Johnny [are] all really nice figures. Supportive. It’s almost like having a second coach. They also just bring a great energy to the team we probably wouldn’t have,” he said.
The appreciation goes both ways. Bildtsen is grateful for the younger players and the community: “I think the people on the team are kind of the highlights to me. We always have a lot of people on the bench because we don’t have a big team, so we bring our JV team and varsity team to all the games,” he said.
Whether it is their first or final year on the team, most of the roster has played baseball since they were little. They all share one thing in common: wanting to improve and have fun together. “The kids on the team are really cool. I really enjoy being in the dugout and talking to them, having fun, messing around. And that’s one of my favorite things about baseball,” said Bildtsen.
The Spartans play their next home game against Nova Classical Academy tomorrow at 4:30 p.m.
