Monday Morning Quarterback: Proctor Softball

Just like in the pro's, more high school teams are implementing off season training. And many players and coach agree that off season training may be as important as practices during the regular season. If you play a spring sport your off season is the fall and in years past programs usually didn't do much during that time. But recent theory has changed and proctor softball implemented off season training. First year head coach Joseph Guidera says, "This year we had one of our first off seasons here at Proctor softball in a very long time and you know we had a great turn out. You know a lot of girls just worked on basic fundamentals and defensive techniques and just swinging the bat a little bit, I think they really got ready for the season in those first three months of the off season."

Nicolina Labella has been on varsity for five years and she says this year is the most prepared she has ever been. Labella says, "We were a little under prepared in years past, like we hadn't done the off season drills, we hadn't really gone over all the situations. So this year I feel like we're more prepared and we're actually ready for what we're going to see during the games and stuff so that's really helped out, I think that's why we've struggled in years past."

            Coach Guidera says the little things are what makes the difference for his team in the long run. He says, "You know just work on fielding ground balls, run downs, all the little things that are going to prepare us for every eventual situation that we can possibly see. I think being prepared is probably the most important thing, I think our girls are prepared, I think we'll do ok."

            And if The Raiders get things rolling the way they should they know what kind of message they want to send. Freshman Stacey Digiorigio says, "We want to be known as like Proctor High School, good softball team. We haven't been known for our wins so hopefully this year we can turn that around and people will start being a little scared."