Windsor
Early last spring, when the Windsor High baseball team lost for the fifth time in seven games, head coach Jamie Richardson told a couple of reporters after a game that “we’re going to be OK.”
For those short on belief, all the Yellowjackets did after that rocky start was win six straight contests at season’s end along the way to the Vermont Principals Association Division III championship, the school’s first such title in 41 years.
Coming back from a rough start to win a championship has been done before. What the Jacks were doing on Saturday morning wasn’t something likely duplicated by many teams.
Inside a room at the Windsor Recreation Department, the team was sitting in a circle listening to Kenedi Hall, an Ethiopian-born Windsor-area resident whom Richardson called in as a motivational speaker. The Jacks must have listened because Richardson said that during the practice afterward, “the players busted like crazy.”
Richardson tries not to overlook any aspect of the game, be it the mental approach or the physical. He makes the players stay busy during practices and is not beyond challenging a player to perhaps work a little harder.
“I might talk to him a little harshly, but before he goes home for the day, I make sure I say something positive,” Richardson said. “I don’t want him to leave thinking I don’t care about him. I do care.”
Richardson, like many Windsor coaches, is a graduate of the school and can be seen at Little League, middle school and junior varsity games with his eye to the future. He also does something very few high school baseball coaches do — he scouts.
“You can see a lot of things about a team when you are there just to observe,” he explained. “You can pick up tendencies; you can eyeball pitchers. I don’t know why more coaches don’t do it.”
As with many area teams, Windsor’s early-season schedule has become jumbled because of playing conditions, but the Jacks may be able to get on their home Royce-Macleay Field diamond as early as today in preparation for Friday’s opener at Fair Haven. As always, the Jacks have a schedule loaded with Division I and II teams, among them cross-river rival Stevens. In all, the Jacks will play just one D-III team (Thetford) before the postseason.
However, Richardson and his players think that heavy schedule isn’t a deterrent. Even though they were only 8-8 and the fifth seed last year, the Jacks blew though the tourney and beating Randolph, 10-3, in the championship game.
Catcher Duncan Fraser, who said he believed Richardson when he said things will be OK after the rocky start, isn’t intimidated by taking on the likes of Brattleboro, Hartford or Burr & Burton, even though all put double figures on Windsor last spring.
“Some games we struggled, but it made us better,” said Fraser. “I really believe that.”
Second baseman Robbie Slocum said he was not quite sure that the team was going to recover last year, but “he (Richardson) made believers out of us. He just made us want to get better, and we did.”
While the schedule may get bunched because of the late start and the usual spring rains, Richardson thinks he has four solid arms that he can count on. However, the hurler that will get the call every time he is ready is Seth Balch, who was on the mound when Windsor won the title.
Balch gets a lot of mileage out of his fastball and has been working on being a complete hurler. He’s aware of the dangers of playing an up-the-hill schedule.
“I’m trying to get better at hitting my spots,” he said. “We just had to battle though the adversity, and we did.”
Richardson has seen the difference.
“He’s worked on his mechanics,” said Richardson of Balch, who also added that Balch went to an event called the I-95 Showcase. “They had like 100 scouts there, where you get a lot of feedback and a report card when you are done.”
In addition to Balch, Richardson has Slocum, Fraser and Adam Stapleton upon whom he can call to pitch, but he admits he is getting anxious to get out of being indoors and onto the playing field.
“You just run out of stuff to do in the gym,” he said.
Richardson thought a lot of the early struggles last spring came from putting young players up against D-I and D-II competition. They’ll get that again soon enough.
Then they’ll be asked to believe.
“I knew my seniors and I knew what we had, but just had to get them to believe in themselves,” he said. “I still think playing those tough games is what made us successful.”