The approaching of springtime brings the start-up process for our spring sports here at AHS. From practicing outdoors to meetings with coaches, all our spring-sport athletes are ambitiously preparing for the 2026 season. Specifically, the baseball department, practicing 5 days a week using a program designed by Head coach Scott Striegel.
“I have a select team that I practice with alone. I’m also working by myself to get better and just come out in the season doing well.” said senior pitcher Dan Delcoure.
In addition to the semi-organized training, most athletes are also working outside of practice, growth comes with repetition and consistency. Routine practices aren’t going to get you very far. Individual or 1 on 1 training is how athletes go from mediocre to advanced.
Junior middle-infielder Xander Carroll said, “ I’ve been hitting every day, lifting after school, and just getting mentally right.” Baseball is a mental sport. A lack of confidence translates to a lack in performance.
Strengthening your mind along with your body is the ticket to succeeding in this sport. Senior utility Dylan Durfee said “I know the weather’s never really been good here, so I definitely don’t take days off when it’s raining outside or it’s super cold, I make sure to get plenty of reps out there” .
Dedication isn’t randomly discovered, it’s learned through desire and heart. Players who don’t make excuses and give it their all are the ones who make it in the long run. From a coaches standpoint, Striegel said “Pitching and defense has always been a real big thing for us. We have really preached fundamentals, so we’re always going to work defense a lot in practice. We really take a lot of ground balls, we do a lot of outfield work with getting the ball in quickly,”
Assistant Coach Greg Hurst said “ I work on pretty much everything behind the scenes. Organizing a lot of fundraisers, getting some ideas together for some of the things we’re going to do as a group.” From the on-the-field work to the background action, these coaches are preparing to lead these guys to victory. The varsity squad clearly wants to come out victorious, and it sounds like nothing can stand between these players and their tenacity.
However, attainment doesn’t come easily. It’s found through challenges and hardships. These players aren’t exempt from failure, it almost happens to them on the daily. “[Getting] back up when you’re in your downs.” Delcoure said. “There’s a lot of failure in baseball.” Professionals are paid hundreds of millions of dollars a year to succeed 30% of the time. Being comfortable with failure is the key to staying ahead in this game.
On the physical side, varsity baseball is no easy task. “Competition gets harder. We’ll play some good teams and we’ll struggle sometimes.” Carrol said. You’re playing against 17-18 year old college commits ready to leave it all out on the field, but the crave for triumph within the roster will take these guys far. “We’re going to face good pitchers…this year, so I think definitely offensively, we could as a team see some difficulties here and there.” Durfee said. We all know the saying, “The best defense is a good offense”, but in this situation, it might be just the opposite.
The only way to help combat poor offense is exemplary defense. The less they score, the less you have to. The coaches have similar takes, “ a big thing compared to last year is that we throw a lot more strikes. We got into situations where we struggled to throw strikes… If you can keep those walks off and force them to get base hit after base hit, you give your defense a chance.” said Streigel.
Most of the time, you have to pitch to contact. The defense is there for a reason. Your job gets a lot easier when you learn to trust the guys behind you. “We’ve got a lot of inexperience on this year’s team. There are a couple of guys that have been there a while, but we’ve got a lot of younger guys that are going to have to step up and play a big role in it.” said Hurst.
Though there may be some new faces on the diamond, they’re on the team for a reason. The decision makers clearly have enough confidence in the players to adapt and take on the challenge. From the view of Parent/Fan Ty Hadlock, the team may struggle in the aspects of pitching. “Every year pitching is a question. You just never know how things will turn out,” Hadlock said. But there are some ways they can combat this potential weakness. “If we can show a strong, consistent presence on the mound game to game, they should be in good shape.” Sounds like filling the zone may just be what this group needs.
Though the team may struggle in some areas, this group has their fair share of strengths. Delcoure and Durfee both agree that the chemistry between everybody is the main strongsuit. “We have known each other since like middle school and before middle school. Some of us have known each other since before kindergarten. So we have a really strong bond with our team.” said Delcoure.
“All of us have known each other for a long time, so I think our chemistry as a team will be pretty well. I think the strength is we’re all just good athletes in general…So it all could really just kind of blend together,” said Durfee. Bonds within the team is a recipe for victory. It doesn’t matter how skilled you are if you can’t work as a single unit.
“We have a lot of guys that have been working on hitting all off-season and I think we’ll be able to hit good this year.” Carrol said. Though they mentioned their pitching competition earlier, it seems they’ll be fine as long as they do the little things right and just put bat to ball. “I’m expecting several players to excel or have break-out season. This team is loaded with baseball talent and the guys have been working extremely hard all off season refining their skills.” said Hadlock.
Goal setting is one of the best ways to achieve success. “I would love to make honorable mention, second team, first team…just have really good stats all around” said Delcoure. Though statistics aren’t everything, it’s nice to be able to see evidence of your progress and hard work paying off. “To just start all year and succeed at the plate. I don’t really care about average, but get a lot of RBI’s and help the team out on offense.” Carrol said. Hitting is such a core aspect of baseball. Carroll’s confident, bulldog mentality is something that’ll bring him success.
“Give it my all.” Durfee said. “ It’s going to be my last time playing baseball for the high school… As a team, I think our goal is to not care about who we’re facing. It could be the state champs. It could be the worst team in WESCO.” These guys are ready to give it their all this year, and nobody’s stopping that train.
“To put kids in a position to be successful. Baseball is a whole bunch of individual parts to make the team. It’s doing everything for each individual kid to put that kid in the position that they need to be in. ”Streigel said, as a goal of his. As the team GM, it’s super important to not only know the game, but to know your team and their capabilities. Coach Striegel’s ready to put his guys in the best possible spot for success.
“Try to put myself in the best place possible to find success for the boys,” said Hurst. Coach Hurst is truly a team player, willing to do whatever odd jobs may arise for the good of the group. “The team battle for a top spot in our conference and make a big push through the playoffs and state.” Hadlock said, which it seems as though they’re ready to do just that.
“The team is tighter and the chemistry is very strong…these guys have been working hard to build each other up all offseason. We have the potential to have some big bats in the offensive line up and that should create issues for opposing pitching and our defense looks to be strong all the way around. There has been a better focus on offseason training and getting their bodies right. Most of them are coming back bigger and stronger. There is a ton of experience returning and collectively all these guys have high baseball IQ’s.” Hadlock said, in comparison to last year. The ability to grow individually and collectively seems to be huge for this group.
Overall, this is a gifted group of guys. From smart coaches to talented players, it seems like nothing can stand in the way of this team and some hardware. In the words of Mr. Ty Hadlock, “this team has the potential to really do great things this season.”
