By Brenda Erdahl
The competitive season begins this week for most Maple Lake High School sports.
Only the track team is ahead of the game with four meets under its belt already, including a contest on Tuesday of this week in Norwood-Young America.
The Irish softball team opened at Royalton Thursday, April 11, after a home game scheduled for earlier this week was postponed.
The Irish baseball team will host Dassel-Cokato at Irish Stadium on Friday, April 12 at 4:30 p.m. and the Clay Target team is shooting Thursdays after school at the Monticello Sportsman’s Club.
The school grounds were teaming with athletes, Friday, April 5 taking advantage of the warmer weather and mostly dry fields.
Softball
At Irish Diamonds the softball team practiced hitting and fielding with a cast of players who Coach Dan Krause considers experienced ball players, but not necessarily experienced at the varsity level.
“We graduated four seniors, so a large majority of our players are returning this season, however, they may need to play a different position than they did last year,” Coach Krause said.
To Junior Nora Goelz, that means she and her teammates, most of whom have played together since elementary school, are going to have to get to know each other at a different level, as varsity players.
“It’s like we’re a whole new team and we’ll have to learn how to play together,” she said.
That bit of uncertainty has Junior Tessa Pribyl is looking forward to seeing just how much they can improve and how far they can go together.
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