Thunder Mountain High School rosters a deep softball team this year, and though expectations run high at Falcons practice, the young squad isn\u2019t quite sure what they\u2019re capable of just yet.<\/p>\n
TMHS\u2019 season opens this weekend with a pair of important conference games at Ketchikan High School.<\/p>\n
A trio of seniors lead the Falcons and have been tasked with defining a winning squad out of a large group of freshmen and sophomores coming off successful Midnight Suns careers.<\/p>\n
Seniors Tracy Bourassa (second base), Taylor Beardslee (pitcher) and Michaela Harp (pitcher and utility player), see a lot of potential in their young squad, but aren\u2019t counting their chickens before they hatch.<\/p>\n
Harp believes the team has more depth than she\u2019s ever seen before.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a really strong team this year. We have a strength in everything with batting, running, fielding, and we all get along real well,\u201d she said. \u201cAs of right now our goal is to beat Kayhi in this series. We\u2019re taking it game by game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bourassa backed up Harp\u2019s analysis: \u201cIn every position we have two people that can play that position. So if somebody gets hurt, we have somebody else that can fill that spot.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have a really good infield this year,\u201d Beardslee added. \u201cEverybody knows whether or not they should be going for a ball or backing up.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Falcons went 5-1-19 last year. The girls may be ascending the ladder in the Southeast Conference, however, as they won their first ever conference games in 2015. Harp says those wins \u2014 11-10 over Kayhi and 15-7 over Sitka High School \u2014 built their confidence coming into the 2016 season. This year the Falcons\u2019 sights are set on eight wins; they believe that could be enough to earn them a trip to the state tournament.<\/p>\n
Coach Jorge Cordero is excited to see how his team has improved since last year\u2019s benchmark.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re excited to start and see what we have. The freshmen are really experienced,\u201d he said. \u201cI think the chemistry is one of the strengths we have. They get along well. Our defense seems solid. On paper we look really good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cordero hopes that the Falcon\u2019s missing piece \u2014 their hitting \u2014 will fall into place this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur hitting, we still don\u2019t know what we have, and that was part of our problem last year, so we are hoping that we\u2019ve made some strides toward that,\u201d Cordero said. \u201dWe\u2019re eager to get started and see where we are with that. During practice they hit really good, they hit hard and hopefully that will translate to the game. If that happens then we have a good chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The girls say they are spending more time talking about and preparing for the strengths of their conference opponents, and though the team is young, they have enough experience to compete with the rest of the Southeast Conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good competition, it always has been,\u201d Cordero said. \u201cSo, we have to be prepared for that. Ketchikan, Sitka and (Juneau-Douglas High School) all have good teams. We feel like we can compete with them this year more than we ever have, so we\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though on her last year with the team, senior Michaela Harp thinks that Falcons softball has a bright future.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter this year, when they (the younger players) see how we all work together, then they\u2019ll be able to follow through and make (the team) even stronger,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen they hit their senior year, those will be some games to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thunder Mountain High School rosters a deep softball team this year, and though expectations run high at Falcons practice, the young squad isn\u2019t quite sure what they\u2019re capable of just yet. TMHS\u2019 season opens this weekend with a pair of important conference games at Ketchikan High School. A trio of seniors lead the Falcons and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":18993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-18992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18992"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=18992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}