The varsity baseball team has had a winning season so far this year with a 4-2 record. The team’s victories against Fairfax, Thomas Jefferson and South Lakes High Schools earned it a spot in the regional top ten. Junior Kent Blackstone, one of the varsity captains, said that the team was happy with the results and ready to keep winning.
“We currently are a game out of first place,” head coach Joseph McDonald said.
“We do not want to lose,” Blackstone said. “Our team will not accept failure.”
Blackstone stated that he thinks the real strength of the team is the hard work and after-school practice, which helps the team to win. The baseball team practices two to three hours every day.
“The people in our district don’t really practice hard because they think they can get by without it and we just have to outwork everybody,” Blackstone said.
Third baseman and sophomore Evan Franke agreed with Blackstone and said that “the hard work pays off. [The] coaching staff is really good, [we have] a lot of teamwork going on. It’s good stuff.”
Blackstone gives a lot of credit to the coaching staff headed by McDonald.
The coaches, Blackstone said, “definitely coach us to work hard. That’s [the] number one thing.”
McDonald said, “It’s a calculated thing that we do. We try to make the practices as hard as possible, so we can take the pressure off them during the games.”
Tonight’s game against McLean will be a fund-raiser game for the Children’s Hospital in honor of Kyle Hahne, who was diagnosed with leukemia at an early age.
Hahne, if he feels well tonight, will pitch the first ball.
Hahne’s dad “has given a lot to the community,” McDonald said. “We just wanted to give something back to him, his family and the Children’s Hospital.”