Packers Baseball Focusing On Strong Finish
West Fargo is 5-0 in the EDC
WEST FARGO N.D. — “Its really every aspect of the game, we’re playing good defense, you know we’re hitting top to bottom in the lineup and our pitchers have just been throwing strikes; that’s where it starts. Pitchers have done a real nice job throwing strikes, giving our offense a chance to put some runs on the board and that’s what we’ve been able to do in this 5-0 start,” said Head Coach, Brett Peterson.
The packers haven’t hit a single homerun this season but with a team batting average of .338 there isn’t an easy out in the lineup.
“Everybody’s hitting the ball, everybody’s getting on base, we don’t have quite the big sticks but we got the contact and that’s what matters, moving people around,” said senior, Matthew Heupel.
Defensively, the packers rely on quality pitching with a focus on keeping mistakes to a minimum.
“What we talk about with our guys is the error column, if we can keep that to 0 or 1 you know we’re going to be tough to beat and so I think we’ve been playing some really good defense and our pitchers too, we haven’t been walking a lot of guys; giving away the free bases that always seem to come back and getcha so I think those are the two keys for us so far and moving forward,” said Peterson.
Despite the hot start the pack knows better than to rest on their early success and are focused on what it takes to finish strong.
“Yeah you know I have been preaching to these guys all day and even yesterday when we took the 4 run lead I’m just like we can’t get too high and then if things are bad we can’t get too low, we just gotta’ stay even and good things are gonna happen if you get too high you start getting cocky then you start making lazy plays and if you get too low you have no confidence in yourself and we just gotta’ stay even keeled,” said Jaden Grefsrud.
“I think that you don’t get satisfied with the win; you’re happy with it you can learn from it but we know that the conference season is half over and we still have a lot to prove and I think these guys understand that you can’t just rest on what we’ve done and we gotta keep moving forward and doing the things that we’re doing if we’re gonna keep putting up some wins,” said Peterson.
With an undefeated conference start and a win over the reigning state champions, West Fargo is ready and motivated to have a target on their back down the stretch.
“As we keep rolling through people its gonna get out that we’re the team to beat and everyone’s gonna start throwing their ace against us.. it should get interesting,” said Heupel.
“We just gotta keep our hitting going, stay focused at practice, keep doing the tee work, keep doing the batting cages, all that and like I said before, we can’t get too high we can’t get too low we just gotta stay even keeled and good things are gonna happen for us,” said Gresfrud.
