Varsity Baseball fell to Saratoga High School 6-0 on Thursday, Feb. 29. Batting first, SHS quickly gained the early lead, scoring one home run in the second inning and two in the third. Having difficulty batting against the SHS pitchers, the Matadors were unable to score while SHS got one home run in each of the last three innings.
Coming off of a win against Overfelt High School on Tuesday, Head Coach Shawn Voigt felt confident the team would do well as he had seen the player’s hard work and level of commitment during previous practices and games. However, senior Kent Masuda, who plays right field and pitcher, says that the Matadors struggled in the face of their opponent’s pitcher.
“We couldn’t catch up to the ball,” Masuda said. “That was their best pitcher, but it’s still pretty unacceptable that we weren’t able to get a shot off of him.”
Senior and outfielder Nathan Liu agrees with Masuda, citing a lack of communication as a barrier to having the whole team be on the same page on where the ball was moving. Although the poor conditions of the rainy weather may have impeded their voices from reaching one another, Liu does not believe that the rain was a major factor in determining their performance.
“The rain is something that we’ve gotten used to over the years,” Liu said. “We had to cancel a lot of games in the past, but we’ve also practiced in the rain to get acclimated to this type of weather. Although pitching was rough with the ball being slippery and wet, our pitchers did really well making sure that the balls didn’t impact them too much.”
Voigt adds that even with difficulty batting, the Matadors maintained a high level of energy in the dugout, commending Masuda for his impressive pitching —specifically for a good slider and fastball that struck out many SHS players throughout the last few innings. Despite the loss, Voigt is confident that the team will improve and is excited to see the team grow.
“We need to improve our offense and our defense is getting better,” Voigt said. “We need to be quicker with our bat and a little bit more ready before we get to the plate as batters. And for the rest of the season, I hope that the team is having fun out there.”
