By Mason E. Haynes

Greenbrier East High School is about to kick off its annual baseball season for the spring. Both athletes and the coach are warming up for a competitive season.

Athletic director and acting coach Ben Routson believes this year will bring a fresh start for the players. “For our spring sports, I expect our baseball team to be pretty good because we have a lot of players coming back,” Routson said. “In the last few years we have had some excellent teams but this year the baseball team is going to be young.”

With new additions to the team roster, newcomers will learn the nature of the sport along with veteran players. “They’ve been working hard because I know they have been doing a lot of out-of-season workouts so they are in definite good condition,” Routson said. “I expect them to be playing really hard and it’s going to be an interesting start because the last two years we’ve graduated quite a few baseball players.”

Routson also describes a typical day of baseball practice and how the athletes would season themselves for future events. “A lot of coaches would have offensive days, defensive days, here at the beginning of the season,” Routson said. “We as coaches evaluate what each player has as far as ability. We take in-field and out-field practice.They do a variety of work of course in-field ground ball, drill, out-field practice and route running drills.”

The Spartans also concentrate to maintain their relationship as a team while practicing on the field.

“They all workout together and they are a tight knit group,” Routson said. “They seem to enjoy each other’s company very similarly to some of our to other teams and that’s very important that they have respect”.

There is a lot of potential in the upcoming 2017 baseball season for the Spartans. However, Routson does not intend to directly be their mentor this year; he will be replaced by Corey Mann who will be the new baseball coach for Greenbrier East.