Spring is right around the corner, hopefully if the snow will melt. This spring the Ipswich Tigers baseball team is looking to have a great season, and most of all it should be interesting. We have a strong group of seniors, who have been playing together since day one. The Junior class also has a great group of players; this is what a team will need to compete in the league that we are in. Every team is tough to play against in different ways. We have a new head Coach for this season and that is Chris Tolios, who is very good. He’s been the junior varsity coach for a couple of years; now he’s getting the chance to be the varsity coach. We also got two other coaches; one will be the assistant coach helping out Chris Tolios and the other coach will be the junior varsity coach. Chris Tolios knows the game and will teach us a lot. We’ve had morning workouts, which we were throwing and hitting baseballs. This started March 1st and this will lead right up to the spring season, which is March 16th. If the snow keeps coming we’re going to have practices inside and most likely the games will be postponed. I really do believe that this team we have this year has what it takes to win the championship; we just need a little more work on the pitching rotation. We have a strong defense and a strong offense for hitting. Once we have that down we are set for a big run hopefully making it to the playoffs.

Danny Bennett, our first basemen and one of our key players for our team, has been playing all of his life and he became a clutch hitter when we need him to be. Danny is a very good first baseman, he’s been playing that position all of his life. From what I’ve seen he loves the game. While interviewing Danny, he had a couple things to say about this upcoming season. He believes that we have what it takes to compete with other teams in the Cape Ann League. “Our team has a great nucleus of returning players, which a lot of the teams in our league don’t have this year. Everybody on the team is ready for a great and enjoyable season. Every team in the league will be tough to play against; no games this year will be a walk in the park.” So we will prepare for every team the right way by practicing hard and making the right plays to win the games.

After interviewing Coach Tolios, he thinks the season will get pushed back from all this snow, because the snow never seemed to stop this winter. Coach stated that “we need to work hard everyday in the gym and get prepared for every given opportunity. Every team in our league is doing the same thing we’re doing for practices right now no one can go outside because the amount of snow that is still on the grounds.” Eventually we’ll get outside once we clear the baseball fields and if we get warm weather for a week straight most of the snow will be able to melt. All he wants to do is make the tournament this year, and everyone puts their mind to it, and works hard we could make this happen. It’s a long couple of months but if we win and have fun the season will go by fast.

Once we get our first game in, the season will be in full swing. We’ll probably have a couple games every week, and then practice will be every day in between the games. We have eighteen games in our season, and we just need to win nine of them to make the tournament. Hopefully we’ll win more games than that. But we do need all of our classes to step up this year and help our senior class make a push. I think our team can be one of the best teams in our Cape Ann league. We’ll try our best for a successful season. But most of all we need to have fun.