The Varsity Baseball team ended their final game spectacularly this year, despite striking out overall in an challenging season.
The Bruins finished their season off with a losing 8-19 record, but their hopes are high for next year after an encouraging 16-2 win against Valley Christian Academy.
Head Varsity Coach Eric Van Patten elaborated on the VCA game and the disappointment of the team falling short this season.
“I think we ended positively,” he said. “That was nice; it was ending our game with Valley Christian Academy was super fun. So, we ended on a high note, we just had some disappointing extra inning losses, and one or two losses where we were close the whole season. You get one or two of those in a season, honestly, that’s OK. You get like 12 to 15 of those, that gets tiring. That’s why, I think, we were tired of the way the results were happening at the end.”
Coach Van Patten spoke to the drive and readiness of the team that is coming up for next year.
“The great thing about the game of baseball is that there’s always room for improvement; there’s always more work to be done, and the guys that we have coming back are driven to do that,” Coach Van Patten said. “They want to work, they want to get better so we’re not gonna go backwards. It’s not like we were so far down that we only had that ‘only can look up’ mentality. Out of 27 games, we only got blown out twice. Every other game was close. We were in it the whole way. To come out with the finish we had, it shows the losses and the wins to how they are, but I don’t think we were out of as many games as people might have thought.”
Senior Pitcher Trace Anderson explained about the camaraderie of the team toward the end of the season.
“When you’re on a team that wins, everyone feels good, but when you’re on a team that loses, sometimes you might not feel good, but you’re really close with all the guys,” he said. “Let me tell you that, you get close with the guys because you go through all these hardships together.”
Johnny Calleri, a junior pitcher, has high hopes for next year’s season.
“I think next year will be a lot better,” he said. “Next year we have a lot more leadership and confidence coming into the season, and I feel like we have a really good team next year.”
Nathan Van Patten, a sophomore shortstop, agreed with Calleri’s assessment.
“I think next year is going to be a good year, especially for the returning varsity players, and then there’s a few good sophomores coming up, so I think next year is going to be a good year,” he said.
Despite the underwhelming season, Coach Van Patten thinks that nobody is counting Bear River out next year.
“I think people were surprised at the end of our season, that our record was what it was, I think people were more surprised than anything,” he said. “I don’t think anyone is going ‘oh Bear River is a done program.’ That’s not even close to what anybody that I’ve ever talked to thinks.”
