Experienced team looks for offensive gain this season

Describe the makeup of your varsity team: Our varsity team is senior and junior dominant - we have 10 seniors and five juniors to go along with four talented sophomores.  We have a lot of experience returning - many players have now played two years of varsity baseball.  

What are your goals and/or priorities for the season? The expectations are very high for us this year.  We have a strong pitching staff led by senior James Oslin and junior Nathan Nelson.  But, we have many other good arms.  I think we’ll be good defensively - the question is can we be better offensively.  We struggled mightily at the plate last year - we expect to be better at the plate because of the experience we have.  We can be a dangerous team if we can put up runs.  

Who do you see as being a challenging competitor? I believe we can finish in the upper half of a very tough Granite Ridge Conference.  Foley, Albany and Little Falls will be very strong.   Pierz and St. Cloud Cathedral have always had strong programs. I think we can be in that mix. In the section I believe we can be in the top four and contend for a section title.  Duluth Marshall is the defending section champions and they return a lot of players. Esko returns their whole team that was section runner-up last year. Aitkin and Pine City will be good as well.  

What would you like your young athletes to gain from being part of your team? Our team has worked hard in pre-season practices - they’ve learned to really push each other and get behind each other. A sense of family that has been strong - those are great lessons they can carry beyond baseball into life.   I really look forward to seeing what this group can accomplish.  

Is there anything else you would like to add regarding your sports season? Once we start playing games it will be challenging because we’ll have so many games in a short time frame (due to the weather).  But, if we stick together I believe we’ll have a successful season.  Captains this year are:  Joe Bakke, Kenny Randt, Nolan McGaw, James Oslin and Nathan Nelson.   Nathan is a junior, the other four are seniors.