As winter sports come to an end and the season changes this signifies the start of spring sports, and one of the most notable sports that are ready to kick off their season is baseball. The boys have been conditioning for many months during the postseason and they are ready to show all their hard work off. Many know the sport as it is America’s pastime, so get your peanuts and cracker jacks ready and come support the boys as they kick off their new promising season with a new young team.
Coach Robert Shahan, who has been coaching baseball for 11 years, is confident in his promising young team this season and believes they are more well-rounded than previous seasons. He believes that his team is very evenly skilled as he stated, “Honestly this year our team is much more evenly skilled than in the past seasons and we have about 15 good players that I trust to put into the game”. He also had this to say about his team, “we also do have a really good pitching staff, as we have three really good pitchers that will keep us in the game”. Shahan believes that baseball is a lot more about management than it is coaching individual techniques and he believes that, “every player has room for improvement as no player is gonna have the perfect swing or perfect throw”. Shahan is a teacher here at Ridgeview and believes that teaching has benefited him as a coach as he stated that, “Teaching is by far the best profession for a coach” and he is extremely confident that he can help teach and manage his players to big things this season on the baseball diamond. The boys’ have a strong schedule this year and their biggest opponents in league will be Bakersfield Christian High School who they swept in league last year and put a broom in their dugout as a joke and Independence High School, who is always a good rivalry for any Ridgeview team. Shahan is confident in his team this year, and he believes that they can come out of this season with some good results and can compete with any team they come up against, he is looking to make a deep run into playoffs with this young promising team.
The players as well as the coach are very excited and ready for the baseball season. One of the players is Right Fielder Gavyn Seifert. Seifert has been on this varsity team for all four years of high school and he believes that, “being on varsity has helped him improve his skills and help him learn how to play the game faster”. When asked about his personal goals for the season he stated that, “I want to have more base hits and less strikeouts’ ”. He believes that the best aspect of his game is his outfield abilities because, “my arm and routes to the ball”. Seifert expressed his confidence early on about the season stating, “I’m actually very confident we started off pretty good and we played pretty good against two of the top teams in Bakersfield ”. Seifert will be walking up to the batter’s box this season with Smile by 2pac, Scarface, and Johnny P playing in the background, with only one thing on his mind, to win.
Another player who is ecstatic for the season is Outfielder Alan Navarro. Navarro has been playing baseball for six years and has been on varsity for two years and he is ready to go into his senior season and have strong performances against good opponents. Navarro´s personal goals for the season are to, “bat over .300” and he feels that the best aspect of his game is his, “speed and his bat”. He expects his team to go far as he stated, “We had a rough start but were over that and we expect great things out of this season”. The boys as a whole are very ecstatic for the season and they are expecting to go far into this season and do great things.
With the confidence that this team has and their current record of 2-2-1 you can only expect great things from this team. They are confident going into league and look to win matchups against their two toughest opponents, Independence and Bakersfield Christian High School. This season is looking to be a promising one from the baseball boys as their young team, as well as their senior players are looking to show up and play quality baseball throughout the duration of the season.