Despite Loss, Baseball is on its Way to Improvement

EXETER – Big Red baseball fell 4-1 to Cushing Academy last Saturday. As of the 22nd, they stand at a .286 record for the season, the lowest record out of any varsity team that has played at least 5 matches. However, the team has started the season with a tough schedule. The feat that Exeter was able to hold the position as a top rated team in the league to a meager 4 points after demolishing New Hampton School 6-0 shows signs of progression for the new team.

Exeter hoped to string together their first pair of wins of the season after NHS, but as it turned out, Cushing was able to live up to the hype and drive in some early runs. However, after captain Nate Dow started off the game and Exeter lost the early lead, a new ace began to emerge: upper Parker Wild.

Wild, having pitched in an earlier game as a closer, had been put into a blowout and forced to make the most of it. And he sure did, dazzling the team in this game with his performance. 

“Parker Wild's pitching was some of the best that I've ever seen,” upper Brendan Rosseau said. “His performance on the mound was remarkable.”

“Parker came in and dominated on the mound for the second half of the game,” upper Brandon Gardner added. “He was untouchable.”

Gardner also mentioned that, overall, he admired the performance his team put together despite the tough circumstances of going down early. “All in all, for playing against the first [place team] in the league, we played very strong. The effort all around was great but we just let a few runs slip early, and that cost us in the end.”

Indeed, the second half of the outing was stronger than the first; there was just no time for a last-second comeback. After staying quiet in the first few innings, the bats came alive in the seventh, but by then it was just too little, too late.

The team now knows that they cannot allow such a big lead to begin a game. The team also noticed some other things they can work on as the season moves on. Rousseau noted, “Our fielding was decent, but there's room for improvement.” 

But overall Rousseau was relatively happy with the team’s performance, “It's a shame that we couldn't get a win against the best team in the league, especially with the individual efforts that a lot of guys showed. 

"I'm confident about our chances this season. We've got all of the pieces but we've just got to put them together. The double header against Deerfield will be huge. Two wins against them puts us back in contention for the playoffs.”

Despite the rough start, Exeter will look to come firing back after Exeter’s midterms. Now fully aware of the things they need to most improve upon, the boys now know how to turn things around. It is now just a matter of doing it. 

As Rousseau said, the team will be looking at their doubleheader against Deerfield this Saturday to demonstrate that they can in fact do it. The doubleheader will be at home, with the first game starting at two o’clock.