(photo courtesy Mr. Dan Kimball)
By Skylah Andrade, Staff Writer
May 10, 2023
ROCKLAND- After all the years Rockland High School has had a baseball team, the boys are still excited to play.
This is Coach Michael Doyle’s 5th year of coaching the Boys' Baseball Varsity team.
The pitching staff on the team is Shane Daly, Ian White, John Murrill, and Shawn Boostrom.
“At the beginning of the season, we set a couple of goals for ourselves. We want to finish at about .500, and we play 18 games a season, so nine wins or more. We [were] sitting at 5-4 at the midpoint,” said Shane Daly, a senior captain.
The team only has five more league games left.
“Coming from behind a win against South Eastern Regional,” is one stand-out moment from the season so far according to Coach Doyle.
Lacrosse has taken a lot of the players that maybe would have played baseball but hasn’t affected the baseball team as it used to.
“I think when lacrosse was new, it took a lot of baseball players and now we’ve gotten to the point where lacrosse players play lacrosse and baseball players play baseball,” said Coach Doyle.
The second half of the schedule is a lot tougher, with Rockland facing teams like Silver Lake Regional High School, Abington High School, and Southeastern Reg Voc/Tech School.
Their keys to success are “working on finishing games and staying in it. We’ve definitely improved since last year on doing that, but being able to stay in games, long-term, and maintain our focus, that’ll be huge,” said Daly.
“Playing with older kids,” is freshman Anderson Dore’s favorite part of joining the RHS baseball program. He plays first base and has been playing baseball for 14 years.
The varsity team did not make playoffs last season, but players are optimistic they have a chance this year.