The varsity baseball team fell to T.C. during their first round of districts, May 19, which concluded their season. The Atoms were able to achieve a 14-7 record for their regular season. The varsity baseball team had not finished above .500 in nine years.
In order to obtain their 14-7 record, the varsity players focused on their health. “
“We do some conditioning and weightlifting, also lot of the varsity players are enrolled in weight training,”” head coach Daniel Porter said.
The main goal of the boy’s season was to compete for Conference and Regional Championship. Unfortunately they did not achieve their goal, but Porter had nothing but praise for the team. “
“I am proud of everyone on the team and how well they played and how hard they worked to be successful,” Porter said. “Unfortunately we did not achieve our goals, but I am still very proud of all they did achieve,” coach Porter was named conference coach of the year. “
“It was an honor because it was voted on by the other coaches in the conference, so it was nice to see that they respected what we were able to accomplish as a team during the regular season,” Porter said.
A strength Porter says he portrays is that he cares for every young man on the team and wants to help them achieve their personal and team goals. He makes practice plans based on what he feels the team needs to do to improve.
With a tied record with Lake Braddock, they became second all team. The team had many of their players make first and second conferences. Juniors Colin Corey and Tim Johnson earned first team conference honors. Second team was made up of juniors Aaron Boyd, Mason Farman, Grant Thompson and senior Hector Lopez. Also Junior Nathan Corcoran received an honorable mention. However, senior Shawn Courtney received a much more prestigious award.
Courtney was named first team all conference utility and player of the year. “
“It was an exciting accomplishment, my team helped a lot when it came to helping me accomplish that goal,”” Courtney said on receiving this award.
This was a much deserved award for many reasons. Courtney had some very impressive stats over the 2015 season. For example, in his 67 at bats this season, he had 28 hits, 22 RBI’s, 25 runs, a batting average of .418, a slugging percentage of .627 and an on base percentage of .506. “
“Overall, our regular season was very well but I was really disappointed with the result of losing the first round of districts because I thought we were one of the better teams playing right now,”” Courtney said
After his last season for the Atoms, Courtney hopes to continue playing in college. “
“I plan on playing at Radford, preferably walk on,” Courtney said.”
Now that the Atom’s season is over, they will be looking forward to the next one. They want to keep improving and make sure that they don’t have a repeat of what happened this year in the first round of districts. With four seniors leaving and new players coming up, the next season looks bright under the wings of Coach Porter.