Baseball considers itself team to beat
By Elizabeth Cotton
Staff Writer

With the MIAA Championship at stake, the men's baseball team is not about to accept second place.

According to Chad Lechy, Monroe senior and team co-captain, the men's baseball team has two goals for the season. "Our main goals are to have a successful Florida trip and to win the MIAA championship."

Coach Jim Conway says the team plans to accomplish their goals through hard work and good practices. " We started out with generic baseball workouts like scrimmages in the fall," Conway said. "Now we're moving into more specialized and individualized workouts."

The team also focuses on the mental aspect of baseball so that they can stay focused during games and through out the season. "We talk about the mental aspect of baseball every day," Conway said. "Every student athlete needs to examine his position and what he needs to do. They have to know what to do next, that's why we practice with purpose."

Lechy mentioned that the team also spends time working on specific drills in order to prepare for playing time. "We have our pitchers throwing in order to strengthen their arms," Lechy said. "Our position players are working on getting their timing down and our hitters are practicing taking ground balls or fly balls."

Conway said that the team's strategy is to be aggressive both offensively and defensively. "Offensively we're going to run and bunt more than the other teams we play," Conway said. "We need to be fundamentally sound by being smart in our aggressive offensive play, the same goes for defense."

Kyle Kidder, Royal Oak junior and team co-captain, agreed by saying that this is also a change in playing style from last year. "This year we are going to try and be more aggressive and put teams away."

For this reason the team also has an extremely positive outlook on the season. "In my opinion we are the team to beat," Kidder said. "We have great upperclassmen leadership and good team chemistry. This will make for a successful season."

Coach Conway agreed with Kidder and encourages the campus community to watch the team play. "You'll be seeing a baseball team made up of twenty-eight kids who are great student athletes that are playing the game for the right reasons," Conway said. " With our style of play you'll be seeing our kids enjoying the game of baseball. Hopefully in the end through hard work we'll win more than we lose."