The first game of the unofficial baseball season kicked off another long ride full of hopes and intimidating expectations. In the shadow of last season’s success, the Oxford Academy (unofficial) baseball team set out to earn its first win on a sunny Saturday morning. With a new team and new positions and the same expecting coaches, the team showed up at 9:15 and began pregame warm ups while Dana Bedard, Steve Fenoglio, and Matthew Fenoglio showed up fifteen minutes later. Not much had changed between returning players, with jokes flying and laughs that would not usually characterize a baseball team. The abnormality showed on the faces of the Freshmen, who did not know what to think when the two team captains, Hayden Higger and Patrick Zajac, encouraged the lack of seriousness. When the coaches arrived half an hour before game time, positions were assigned and the starting pitcher began to warm up.

The opponent was Artesia’s varsity team, a team that has pulled out surprising wins and blatant losses against the Patriots. The starting pitcher was Steven Criss, Junior, and starting catcher was Hayden Higger, Junior, a duo that has done well in the past and came out hoping for a decent game. The first inning began shaky with several walks and one hit batter. Criss pulled it together after one run scored, getting the next two outs and heading to the bottom of the first. The scoring spree started in the first and continued throughout the game, up into the ninth inning, totaling over seven runs. The team’s hitting masked several ugly plays in the field and on the bases, yet despite the errors, the Patriots easily dismantled Artesia’s pitching and circled the bases with dizzying repetitiveness. Criss shut down Artesia the next two innings and Patrick Zajac came in to pitch for two innings. Zajac commanded his fastball and devastated his final batter with a curveball that caused the batter to jump out of the box with a called third strike. Next in to pitch was Sophomore Daniel Lucak, with a strong fastball and high-looping curve. His innings were highlighted by sliding plays by both Lucas Sardo at third base and Criss at shortstop, along with a dominating strike out to cap it off. Going into the ninth inning, Freshman Mike came in to shut it down for Oxford Academy. His lack of experience at the high school level did not become a factor as the fielders settled down and made the plays they needed to make in order to seal the win.

With the official season still months away, the Patriot baseball team noticed the aspects of the game that needed to be improved and what needs to be maintained. Promising signs of improvement from the previous season were the several hits shared by Jeremy Klingsporn and Harvey Higger, who whacked the Artesia pitchers around throughout the game. Also, catcher Hayden Higger showed major strength, carrying over from last year, in gunning all runners trying to steal second base except for one, who was safe on a missed tag by Criss. Pleasing Coach Bedard is a fine art and the Patriots will have to work hard and improve immensely in order to do so. In the words of Bedard himself, “All we have to do to win is score more runs than the other team” and this is exactly how the job was done this Saturday morning.