Interim coach will lead Falcons

By Dan Truttschel/Sports Correspondent

Optimism is high around the Westosha Central baseball team this spring.

And now it’s up to the Falcons to turn that optimism into results on the field.

Central will lean on its senior leadership and depth for success in 2014, according to interim head coach Jacob Morman.

Morman, the freshman coach last year, will lead the varsity in the absence of longtime head coach Randy Appleby this spring. Appleby is taking the season off for personal reasons.

Central was 8-15 overall last season and 5-9 in the Southern Lakes Conference.

“Our team has a very positive outlook,” Morman said. “We expect to compete every single night, and at the end of the year, be competing for a conference championship.”

Morman said he will rely on a core of seniors to lead the way, including Brooks Gahart, Justin Barney and Chris Frackowiak, along with juniors Marshall Gilbert and Greg Kuhfuss.

Each of those players has to come through both on and off the field, Morman said.

“I expect the seniors to lead by example, continue to compete and work each day to get better,” he said. “Brooks and Justin are going to be key pieces of our pitching rotation, and I need them to step up. If we do that, we can get to the places we want to go.”

And that’s not to say that Gilbert, Kuhfuss and the other underclassmen can’t make an impact as well, Morman said.

Gilbert showed he may be ready in the 2014 opener last weekend with a solid effort in a 3-0 non-conference win over Shoreland Lutheran, Morman said.

 

Shooting for top of SLC

The first notch on the Falcons’ to-do list is to make a run at the SLC title, Morman said.

Badger and Union Grove tied for the crown last spring at 11-3, followed by Wilmot and Burlington at 8-6.

“From the first day of the season, these kids have set a variety of goals,” Morman said. “One of those goals is a conference championship.

“I think the usual teams will all be there in the end, and I expect us to be fighting right there with them for a conference championship at the end of the season.”

To reach not only the conference goal but others the Falcons have set, it will be vital they come every day ready to get better from the previous one, Morman said.

If they do that, the rest should take care of itself, he added.

“We need to come to practice and prepare every day,” Morman said. “The seniors need to lead and the rest of the team will follow.

“I need some of those (other) juniors and other ones to step up and perform at the varsity level.”

Included in that group of newcomers who could make an impact, Morman said, are sophomore Dylan Hogan and freshman Garrett Gilbert.

“(They) need to learn from those seniors and grow as baseball players throughout the year,” Morman said.

Morman, who is in his first full year as a physical education teacher at Central, said the transition to a varsity head coach has been a smooth one.

And that’s because of the efforts of many, he said.

“Randy Appleby and assistant coach Bill Price have been extremely helpful throughout this transition period,” Morman said. “The kids have really bought into what I believe they are capable of.”

What the future holds for Morman is up in the air, as Appleby hopes to return in 2015 – but for now, the first-year head coach is concentrating on what he can control this year.

“The hope is that Randy will be back next season,” he said. “Nothing is certain at this point, and it is all kind of up in the air. I just look to do the best job I can each and every day and help these kids grow as individuals and as baseball players.”

 

 


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