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New coach has high hopes

By Staff | Apr 1, 2012

Blue Earth Area Buccaneer softball is preparing for what appears to be a very promising season.

With a new head coach leading the varsity, the team has high hopes for success.

Abby Bloom-quist, who also teaches English at the high school, is new to the Blue Earth Area softball team.

“I’m originally from Faribault and went to college at Bemidji State.” Bloomquist says.

Bloomquist is taking over the team from T.J. Schmidtke who coached softball last year.

This year’s varsity softball team consists of 12 girls.

“We have one senior, a handful of juniors, a few sophomores and two freshmen,” Bloomquist adds.

The coach is hoping to have a good season and be able to get to know the strengths of the team.

“Right now we’re working on improving our hitting.” Bloomquist says.

Along with getting the players on the same page with batting, coach hopes to work on their offense as a whole.

“The girls have a solid defense. So, we’re working hard at practice to improve our offense.” Bloomquist said. “If we’re successful in that, we will do well.”

Janessa Jahnke will be a player to watch this season. She was all-conference last year and will be catching for the Bucs this year.

Megan Wirtjes and Abby Nimz will be the starting pitchers this season.

“Those two will both get time on the mound,”?Bloomquist says. “We’ll really be rotating them for pitching.”

Evie Leland, returning shortstop from last year, will also be seeing a lot of playing time this season.

“It’s early in the year and I’m new with these girls, so it’s hard to say for sure who the key players will be,” Bloomquist says.

The first game of the season and the first game for coach Bloomquist will take place on Tuesday April 3.

The game will be away at New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva High School and will start at 4:30 p.m.

This will be a good opportunity to check out the new coach and the team chemistry after some rebuilding last year.

Although this year’s team may have fewer girls than their previous season, they do have more returning players.

With that experience from last year and a coach with her sights set high, the Buccaneers softball team should see a successful season.

Coach has confidence in the talent she has seen from the whole team so far.

“Like I said before, we’re early in the season,” Bloomquist says.