Archer’s Softball Team Prepares with Nationals in Mind
BY: AMANDA HARRIS
Production Manager
The Archer’s Softball team is preparing for the season, which begins over President’s Day in January 2019.
“We’re taking a bus trip down to Mississippi and playing down there,” said Coach Kristi Swiderski. “Then we come back and we’ll play a few games the first week in March.”
Coach Swiderski said the goal this season is to make the national tournament, “because we’ve dominated our region.”
This year, she said she also believes that the team has the manpower and strength to go through to the postseason.
“I expect us to win our region, hands down, and I expect us to put on a good fight through district and then into nationals,” said Swiderski.
Sophomore pitcher and outfielder Hannah Marquardt said she’s “super excited because this fall season we were just as good as we were in the spring last year, so I think we have a better mentality of winning. Our goal is to go to nationals this year and I think we have a really good opportunity to do that.”
Sophomore Kacy Bergfield, who plays catcher, third base and outfielder said hope is in full swing.
“I think we’ll play very well and we’ll have the outcome that we hope to have,” she said.
To prepare for the upcoming season and nationals, the team is currently actively weight training and training for speed and agility, according to Swiderski.
“We do weight training, like free weights, twice a week and then we’ll do functional training which includes medicine balls and kettlebell workouts once a week,” she said.
The team has 12 new teammates this year as part of their 21 person team.
“We’re doing things for the majority of the year, except for the summer. It’s a good number to have. People aren’t getting overworked,” said Swiderski. “They all come from different places, different programs things like that, so you’re not sure what they’re used to. It’s long and
hard and they have to have some good work ethic and persevere through it all.”
As the team aims for nationals this year, Bergfeld said that her personal goals for the season are to beat her stats from last year when she had many doubles.
“I’ll be playing more third base this year, so I hope to improve my infield knowledge,” she said.
Marquardt also said her goal last season, when she was a freshman and shy, was to “be able to show my opinions and be a leader.”
Bergfeld said that Maddison Stanley is the player with the strongest mentality “because she always works hard and even when she’s not on the field she still understands the game very well, and she’s always yelling and cheering. She’s definitely one of the loudest ones in the dugout.”
Academics are also a key part of preparing for the season.
“You have got to be intelligent to play softball because it’s not black and white,” said Swiderski. “Things during the game will change. For example, you have on first and third and you may call a certain play, but then the runner on third base doesn’t do what you expect them to do, and the runner on first doesn’t do what you expect them to do, and so they have to think on the fly.”
There’s so much to the game that many don’t realize, said Swiderski. “There aren’t set things that say ‘when this situation happens this is what you do,’ so they have to be intelligent and be able to think quickly on the fly, which a lot of people don’t realize. They think that as long as you can hit, throw and catch, you’re good. And there’s a lot more to the game than just that.”
