The 2023-2024 baseball season is underway. Last year, the team made it far in sections but did not make it to the state tournament. This year, the players are ready to leave a mark and have the baseball team recognized throughout Minnesota. The players are training to win the State Tournament and improving on parts of the game that need improvement from last year’s season. Jesse Posada ‘26 says “To improve on from last year’s season, I think a big thing was pitching and just throwing strikes because that’s the biggest thing in the game is just letting the other team hit the ball so that we can have opportunities on defense and getting outs.” Similarly, Charlie Wright ‘26 said, “Pitching depth especially for us with you know as we move deep into a section tournament we kind of run out of arms and I think getting that confidence that we have you know six seven eight guys that are capable arms that can come in a situation when it’s needed and throw strikes and get the job done for us.”
While needing to improve on pitching, the team is very confident in their batting ability. Posada said, “The hitting I think was pretty good last year and I think we are doing a good job of that this year.” Wright said, “Hitting has never been a problem for us, we have a strong hitting team we are able to come through in the clutch when needed” This year, many players on the team are spread across different grades. Captain Will Nelson ‘24 says, “Our team dynamic is special there’s a lot of respect for the upper-class guys and from us for the younger guys it feels like we’ve been on a team for more than just a couple months and I think this will be very impactful especially if things get rough with losses or whatever it may be.” Posada says “I think our team bonding is very good we go to dinner together and we also had an Iowa trip for a few days staying in a hotel together bonding and stuff so I think the age gap is no problem you know we have freshman to seniors all friends with each other so our team chem is very good.”
Last year the team had many seniors who all played crucial roles toward the team. Due to graduation, the team had gaps that needed to be filled. Posada said, “Our starting catcher last year London was very good but we have two other catchers Chuck and Vandy so that position has been filled and we did a very good job of filling all the gaps and I think the team is honestly better than last year even though almost half the team was seniors.” Nelson added by saying “We lost a couple guys that played a big role in the field but we seem to have found some guys that fulfill the roles.” The team does have some obstacles to overcome. Wright says “Breck is continually going to be a competitive game every single year.” Last year, the Bears were swept by the Mustangs in the regular season, losing 21-17 in the first game and 17-9 in the second. Posada focused on “Really just locking down on the pitching and just staying with it all the way through.” The last time the team competed in the State Tournament was in 2014, when they lost in the first round, and the team has not won a state tournament.
