Baseball, softball teams start seasons

Sometimes teammates have to defend each other Joe Reed said.

Reed, head baseball coach saw his team leave their bench for a physical altercation Sunday.

After words between opposing players, each team went on to the field.

"It really wasn't much of a fight," Reed said. "It cleared up really quickly."

Reed said his team continued on after the confrontation.

"You don't want to have your teammates involved," Reed said. "Sometimes they have to defend each other when necessary."

In regards to the season, Reed said that the season has a promising outlook.

"I think we're much more competitive than what we've been in the past. We've got a good mix of young players and those that have experience both in terms of returning players and transfers."

Sam Engle, a junior center fielder, is a captain on the team.

"We're really excited for this season to get going," he said. "We think we have a good chance of winning conference this year."

Reed said the team had a slow start, partially because of the weather.

"Due to the length of time that we were inside, he said. "It's good to practice. It's good to get the repetitions in and the drills, but it's no substitute for live action."

Nevertheless, coach Reed said that he did not want to make excuses from the weather.

"We've been in all the ball games, pretty much," he said. "We've beaten ourselves a couple games, when we've had opportunities to put the games away, we've allowed teams to hang in there with us."

Jay Kahnt, Head softball coach, said that he feels good about the season as well.

"We've got some good veterans on the team with some good newcomers," he said. "And our expectations are very high. We've talked about a conference championship this year and we're not getting down from that."

Ashley Renaldi, a sophomore pitcher, said that she feels the team will do well.
"I think our team will do really great. We're going to win a lot of games. I'm just excited for this season."

Kahnt also said that the weather did have a negative affect, and that the team had not had the outdoor practice time that they usually have coming into a season.

"Nothing we can do about mother nature, we just have to find ways to make practices fun," he said. "We don't make excuses in our program and we're definitely not going to blame the weather for our play and those kind of things."