As the leaves on trees begin to grow again and the weather becomes hotter, it reminds us there’s one of many spring sports that’s coming back, like baseball.
Landstown High School’s (LHS) varsity baseball team was 13-6 overall last year, had a ranking of #43 in the state and was overall #4 in the region.
As the new season starts, there’s also a new roster including many new players, like Henry Osbourn, a sophomore junior varsity (JV) and varsity baseball player at LHS. Osbourn plays center field, left field, first basemen and pitcher.
As this is Osbourn’s first year on varsity, he explains his new found experience and the differences between JV and varsity.
”It’s definitely a unique experience, it’s cool to see how this skill variation is between JV and varsity and it’s just an overall fun experience because I get to be on the team with the guys I was on JV with last year. So it’s kind of cool to see them step up and be leaders and it’s an overall fun experience, but it’s definitely tiring.”
Osbourn also explained the commitment on the team this year.
“It’s a lot of commitment. It’s kind of like you have a relationship to the game, it’s like a really good friend that’s been there for you for a while and you just know that you can always count on it after you have a long day. And just like a relationship, it will make you upset at times, but it’s important to remember that at the end of the day, you do it for the love of the game, you do it to have fun and everyone wants to make it as far as possible, so it’s important to try your best.”
While there have been new players and new experiences, some things don’t change like Garrett Clark, a junior on varsity who plays catcher, second base, and left field. Clark has been on varsity for three years and explained that in that time, “My performance [and] knowledge has improved substantially since the start.”
Clark also provided information about what he believes is the best part about the team: “The best thing about being on varsity is having harder competition to go against and improve.”
As our baseball team works harder and harder to become one of the best, Coach Middleton, one of the baseball coaches at LHS, explained how he helps the team get to the top.
“Goal setting at the beginning of the year as a team and knowing what our goals are for the year and doing different things and talking about how to achieve those goals and make sure we get to where we want to be.”
He also expressed what game days are like and how the players get ready for said game.
“Honestly, we don’t have to do much to get them excited and ready, we have a routine that we do for every game where they hit and they throw, so just keeping their routine and the players do a good job getting ready for the game and keeping the intensity.”
It seems as though the intensity is working as they went from 0-2 last week to now 3-2 with three wins against Currituck County High School, Salem High School, and now Bayside High School.
The LHS baseball team seems to now be on a roll and it appears we can expect many more wins in the future.