OnFocus Season Preview: Auburndale Eagles Baseball
Coaching staff: Jay Anderson, Josh Raab, Mike Gehrke
Key returners:
Blake Raab (Sr.), Nathan Richardson (Sr.), Ayden Raab (Sr.), Asa Soppe (Sr.), Peyton Weinfurter (Jr.), Josh Lundgren (Jr.), Colton Brandl (Soph.), Julian Anderson (Jr.)
Key newcomers:
A pool of Sophomores and possibly some Freshmen will have some opportunities. I don’t want to get into who that might be at this point.
Conference outlook: It’s very difficult to predict the conference outlook this coming season. We had a lot of very good players graduate last year and I don’t know the players that will be there to replace them. I know that Marathon is always strong and Stratford has the athletes. Edgar has some very good athletes also and they probably return more than anyone. We can fit in there somewhere with those teams if we get solid defense behind our experienced pitching. And that isn’t always a guarantee. Assumption and Newman have some struggles with numbers and I don’t have any idea what Newman will now have. Assumption is coached well and they do have some nice players. I really don’t know what to expect.
Keys to your success this season:
We have five full-time starters returning with Blake, Nathan, Ayden, Peyton, and Josh. Asa and Colton have some experience starting a few games and Julian traveled. We do have quite a bit of experience returning and I expect them to step up their play. Although that appears to be a lot of experience, it doesn’t represent the bulk of our offensive production from last season. We lost a lot of offense with the graduation of Kaden Anderson, Aden Cherney, and Caden Weinfurter.
Each of the previously mentioned players has to pick up their play and help with the loss of that production and we have to find 2-3 more players that are mentally and physically ready to help at the Varsity level. The early stages of the season will be very important to find who is ready mentally more than anything else.
We return about half of our innings pitched. We have three experienced pitchers in Blake, Nathan, and Ayden. I hope to find a couple more. That pitching depth could come from a couple of Sophomores who have looked good… Truxton Becker and Ayden Cherney. Juniors Josh Lundgren and Peyton Weinfurter also pitch.
We have to find the right combination of players in relation to who is pitching each particular game. The sooner that puzzle is figured out the better. Each season we seem to improve quite a bit from beginning to end with us being at our best as we head into the tournament. I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens again this year. I am hopeful that the improvement will come along quickly and steadily.
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Author: David Keech
David Keech is a retired teacher and works as a sportswriter, sports official and as an educational consultant. He has reported on amateur sports since 2011, known as 'KeechDaVoice.' David can be reached at [email protected]
