Effort, attitude, grit cornerstones of Ogilvie baseball

Describe the makeup of your varsity team: We will be a rather experienced team. We are losing two every-day starters from last year, but we are hopeful that we have the right guys to fill their void. We also seem to have more pitching than in past years, and in this generation of baseball, you can never have enough pitchers.

What are your goals and/or priorities for the season? The goal is always to win. To win conference, to win section and to go to state. Some may think those are lofty goals, but if that’s not the ultimate goal, I don’t know what should be. Our purpose is to compete every game, to have grit when it’s needed and to overcome the mental hurdles that we’ve struggled to do in the past.

Who do you see as being a challenging competitor? Everyone in our conference gave us a challenge last year. No one game will be easy. And when you take a team lightly because our mindset says “this should be easy,” well that’s when we end up with an undesired outcome.

What would you like your young athletes to gain from being part of your team? Baseball is a game of failure and mistakes. Well, so is life. The world isn’t over if you make a mistake and fail right away. It’s about how you respond. It is how you help others respond in their failures. Will you be there for your friend or teammate or will we lay blame? Compete, effort, attitude, grit...these are all needed everyday by everyone.

Is there anything else you would like to add regarding your sports season? With the awful spring we’ve had, these boys haven’t wavered once. They continue to compete and stay motivated for what’s to come. If this is any glimpse of how they will respond when actual games start, I feel confident of how our team will finish this year.