When looking at the baseball team’s roster, the amount of individual athleticism is impressive. Unfortunately for the team as a whole, the hitting has not been up to snuff.


The team has struggled with hitting all season. Junior catcher Carson Kenney feels that it has been the team’s main weakness.

“We’ve been pretty inconsistent.” said Kenney of the team’s hitting. “We’ve had games where we’ve hit the crap out of the ball and games where we’ve only had two or three hits.”

According to Kenney, the team has had its ups and downs. They have experienced some disappointing losses such as their April 2 meeting with Quince Orchard in which they were outscored 7-18. A few disappointing performances prompted Coach Ahearn to revamp the line- up in the middle of the season, to emphasize speed and bunting and attempt to take more of a small-ball approach.

Since this realignment there have been some notable wins, including an impressive victory over Blair, whom they lost to earlier in the season. This time however, they defeated them 6-2 on April 23. This game show- cased the Wildcats talent and helped to reaffirm morale. The game started off close but was broken open by junior infielder Mac Gill who hit a much needed base- clearing double.

Still, hitting continues to be one of the main focuses of the players at practices and a point of emphasis during team discussions after games. The team has been doing additional hitting reps in the batting cage to work on level swings to avoid hitting too many pop-ups. As senior outfielder James Kim explains, there is still a feeling that the team needs work in this area.

“Our pitching has been there all year long and our defense is getting better,” said Kim. “We just don’t have the clutch hitting we need.”

While the team attempts to improve its batting average, the main goal for the end of the season is to bring it all together and gain some pre-playoff drive. With a big game against B-CC this afternoon and a meeting with Magruder on May 4, the team is looking for some serious wins to finish off their season.

“We’ve got four games left so we’re gonna try and win them all and build some momentum.” Kenney said.

It is this kind of energy and a confidence boost that the team hopes to ride into the playoffs. The team is hopeful if they get this edge they could go very far in the postseason.

After last year’s loss at Whitman on May 12, 2008, the team knows that it has work to do if it wants to finish the season on a high note heading into the 4A West playoffs. Coach Kim Ahearn thinks that this team could be a force to be reckoned with.

“It is interesting that several of the coaches of teams we have played have expressed that they do not want to face WJ in the playoffs,” he said. “They think we will be very tough, our pitching is that good.”