The Brown and White

The Rough Rider baseball team headed into this season with some seasoned seniors at the helm and a core group of juniors, along with some underclassmen looking to get time. From the start, senior Jacob Schneck was hoping to break into some postseason play.

“With the talent we had, the postseason was definitely a possibility for us as a team,” said Schneck.

Senior second baseman Andrew Martinez was hoping to start off with some momentum to rally the team early in the season.

“Our first game was against one of the better teams of the league, so a win against them would have set us up nicely,” said Martinez. “We held them to three a piece at the bottom of the sixth but couldn’t finish with a win.”

The Roughs started off with two one-sided games. They endured a 14-3 loss against Bangor followed by a commanding 12-3 victory over Salisbury. The Roughs battled out the rest of the season, falling short of post season play with a 4-16 record. Martinez felt that they were competitive but tripped up by simple mistakes.

“We were in a lot of games this season, but we would have an inning or two where the simple mistakes would cause us to get bogged down,” said Martinez.

The upcoming leadership has already started working in the off-season to get prepared for next year. Junior third baseman and pitcher Adam Reinhart knows the work needed to meet the goals the team has laid out for next year.

“We need to continue to play all seven innings and keep the intensity up throughout the whole game,” said Reinhart. “The team needs to not only focus on the field play but also improve on our hitting.”

Derek Troxell and his fellow teammates are confident that, with the proper preparation, they have a bright future.

“We battled this year in every game and were in it until we would make a simple mistake,” said Troxell. “If we correct those mistakes and do what we have to do, it will all come together.”