LONGMONT — New varsity rosters can bring excitement to any program, but they can also create some headaches early in the season.
Longmont baseball knows that all too well.
On Thursday on their home field, the Trojans fell to Class 4A No. 9-ranked Windsor in a four-inning, 15-0 affair after a series of errors and hit batsmen resulted in an 11-run top of the fourth. Just a week earlier, the Trojans defeated fourth-ranked Holy Family in back-to-back contests.
Through its first eight games and a 4-4 record, Longmont is still trying to find the consistency that can sometimes evade teams that only bring back three varsity players from the year before.
“We’ve played really bad baseball like this and then we’ve played some pretty good baseball like last week,” head coach Tom Fobes said. “We’ve played well. We beat Holy Family twice, so we’ve played some pretty good baseball against Holy Family just like last week. Before that, we had a couple of bad games.”
The Trojans have also run into some bad luck on the injury front, further pressuring LHS’ reserves to step up to different roles early on.
With this Windsor game now in their rearview mirror, the Trojans must now refocus toward a rematch with the Wizards in Windsor on Saturday afternoon. Thursday’s outcome will only serve to make the Trojans stronger in the long run, as they continue to iron out the wrinkles in their defense and learn the varsity pace of play.
“It’s just our energy. We didn’t have it today,” senior shortstop Zander Dill said. “When we have energy for a full game, especially right out the jump, I think we can compete with whoever. Most games, we’re stringing it together, getting in runs in later innings, doing what we need to do for our team, throwing down bunts. It’s playing the small ball, doing dirty work.”
