The CHS baseball team had one common goal: to win. After starting their season 0-6 in the BCSL Liberty division, the players strived to improve their record as a team while continuing to build on their individual skills.
“I want to be a reason we win. I don’t want to be the reason we lose a big game,” junior captain Jacob DeJoseph said mid-way through the season. “I want to show up in big moments to, like, help us propel – advance in playoffs.”
The players were looking forward into their season, aiming to be selected for the BCSL First or Second team. Playoffs and a South Jersey championship were all part of the major objective as well. In order to achieve any of this, senior captain Matthew Dever described how it’s all about mindset.
“You’ll fail seven out of 10 times, and you’ll still be a great baseball player. So, you know, keep that mindset of accepting losses, but also learning from them,” Dever said.
An integral aspect of a collaborative, successful team is those who lead it. Both coaches and captains influence their teammates to work hard and practice. Assistant coach Brian Jenkins described what led him and the other coaches to choose Dever and DeJoseph as this year’s captains.
“Their leadership ability, their play, their ability to kind of pick the team up when they’re down. They were showing the traits that you look for in a captain,” Jenkins said.
A motivation during practices is gaining strength and skills to, in particular, beat Delran. After two losses to the Bears earlier in the season, the team relied on its practices to strive towards an improved record.
“Just being out in a practice. Just working on getting better and better,” sophomore Gavin Bobrek said.
Practices were not only a time to train physically, but also to collaborate and synergize as a team. The ultimate goal of this season is to earn more wins.
“We’re just working hard. We’re keeping the energy up. Obviously, some rough losses during the first half here, but we’re figuring it out,” Dever said halfway through the season.
A significant challenge this season was the large number of freshmen and sophomores on the team compared to upperclassmen. The team focused on improving their rapport as athletes because many of them had not played together before this season.
“I feel like we had, I think, a group of guys that haven’t really played with each other, so, like, getting the chemistry built to solve is a big part,” DeJoseph said.
After losing nine graduates last year, the team consisted mostly of underclassmen. Jenkins worked on preparing the more inexperienced players with as much situational practice as possible.
“Just trying to prepare the guys during practice as best as possible to understand different scenarios so that they can be best equipped to kind of, you know, do well on varsity,” Jenkins said.
The team amped up their confidence and finished their season with an overall record of 11-14, respectively.
“We’re right at the turning point, and I feel like we’re ready to get hot and turn it around,” Dever said mid-way through the season.
