With February coming to a close, winter sports at Flora High are winding down, and spring sports are stepping up. Some of the upcoming sports include baseball and track. The baseball, along with girls’ and boys’ track seasons, kicked off Monday, March 2nd.
The baseball team ignites their season at Newton on March 17, with their home opener on March 21 against Christ Our Rock Lutheran.
This season, the baseball team coaching staff hopes to have around 23 players: two seniors, seven juniors, seven sophomores, and seven freshmen. Head Coach Brian Tackitt is setting standards for his players high this year, hoping to compete for the conference championship and get a good seed to make a run in the postseason.
Tackitt states the team “should improve on last year’s mark [because they] will be pretty good defensively in the field.”
In order to reach Tackitt’s goals and expectations for this season, he says, “[the team] will have to improve on pitching,” and as long as the team doesn’t walk too many, they’ll be able to compete with every team they face.
As for the players, senior pitcher and outfielder Isham Lusk believes their toughest competition will be St. Anthony, while sophomore second basemen and catcher Ashton Williams believes their toughest competition will be T-Town. Junior catcher and pitcher Kormik Massie believes the team’s biggest challenge this season will be hitting and finding ways to get on base, with Williams believing it’ll be their lack of pitchers.
Even with the possible struggles, Massie is excited to get this season started, and Williams is looking forward to winning and hoping to make a playoff run. Track season kicks off with their first meet on March 26 at Stewardson-Strasburg High School. The boys’ team has just under 50 signed up, with the girls’ team having around 15 members.
This season, the boys’ team received a new coach, Jake Ledgerwood. With it being his first season as a track coach, he’s placing high expectations on these boys while remaining patient.
Ledgerwood believes this group has talent, but “failures won’t be making others fail this season.”
Sophomore Hudson Kohn has been involved in track and field for three years and has competed in the 400-meter and 4×4 relay. Kohn joined track because “[when he] moved here in eighth grade, it was the first sport [he] was able to compete in” and ultimately decided he wanted to compete throughout the rest of his junior high and high school years.
Kohn’s biggest goal for the upcoming season is to run 54 seconds in the 400-meter.
As for the girls’ team, Leah Stanford continues coaching. Even though the girls’ track team is small, Junior Rozalyn Stanford is “[hoping] for at least one win this season.”
Stanford has been competing in track since 6th grade and will continue throughout her high school career. During her high school seasons in track, Stanford has competed in pole vault and high jump.
