Rams Report: Coaches Time Out

Spring Break is over and at this point, softball still remains undefeated as they begin to wrap up the first half of the season. Boys lacrosse is also still undefeated in the PAC-10 after picking up two league wins late last week.

Baseball has announced that all of its remaining home games have been moved to 7 p.m. Girls lacrosse announced Friday's game against Upper Perkiomen has been moved to Thursday. Boys Track & Field is still undefeated, while the girls dropped their first meet to returning champs Methacton last week. Boys tennis is gearing up for the Second Annual Spring-Ford Invitational this Saturday.

The spring coaches took a midweek break to chat with Editor Kevin Haslam.

Baseball Trying to Put Two Good Games Together This Week

The baseball team starts its week off against a 4-2 Upper Perkiomen team, after not seeing any action since last Wednesday. The game was moved from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. and the boys will play under the lights at home.

"We’re looking forward to it," head coach Bruce Brobst said. "It’s our first night game. They’re playing some good baseball. We would like to be playing good baseball. Looking forward to getting back on the field and putting together a solid game of baseball in all phases: pitching, defense and hitting. We hit the ball last time and did a lot of good things that way, didn’t do as good as we would have liked pitching-wise and defense-wise. Looking forward to doing all of that in that game."

On Friday, the boys head to Owen J. Roberts at 7 p.m. to face off against the league-rival Wildcats.

"Owen J. has been a huge rival of ours for many of years," Brobst said. "For the last year, they’ve gotten the best of us more times than we’ve gotten the best of them. So, anytime we play them, it doesn’t matter what the records are or how one team’s doing, it’s going to be a fight."

Overall, Brobst said this week is about being a good baseball team.

"We’re just trying to put two good baseball games together this week," he concluded.

Softball Gets Lucky Against Perkiomen Valley, Continues PAC-10 Schedule This Week

The softball team faced Perkiomen Valley last Wednesday and had a come-from-behind 8-5 victory over the Vikings. However, the box score did not indicate the way the girls played according to head coach Tim Hughes.

"I think we came out a little slack," Hughes said. "We had the day off. That’s my fault. I should have made sure they were up. I think some of them just weren’t ready to play. That’s the coach’s fault. I need to make sure they’re ready to play. PV was ready to play and they did a good job."

Hughes said the girls got around the middle of the game and realized they had to "wake the heck up" and started to play their game. After the Vikings had the bases loaded with no outs, the girls were able to get out of the inning without letting Perkiomen Valley score.

"It was one of those things where we got a little lucky," Hughes said. "We didn’t play our best and PV is too darn good not to play your best. It just happened that we walked out of there with a victory, but I tell you what, it was a good learning experience too. These kids know they cannot fall asleep on anyone anytime. I’m glad we came back but we can’t fall asleep against any teams or we’re going to get stung."

Next up is Pope John Paul II, which is currently in progress. The Panthers are defending district champs, despite a slow start this season.

"I know there were some close games that didn’t turn out the way they wanted to this year, but they got us one time last year and do a good job," said Hughes. "There’s no break. We’ve got to be ready to play tomorrow. I’m hoping we are. We had a couple of good days of practice. The kids worked hard. I hope that’s a good indication of how we play. We need to make them beat us. We can’t beat ourselves."

The Rams go out to play Upper Perkiomen on the road on Thursday and that should be another challenge, as it is every year.

"When we go to Upper Perk, it always seems to be a game no matter who’s good and who’s bad," said Hughes. "It’s nothing we can kind of get complacent. We need to play well this week."

The season is about halfway through already and Hughes is hoping the girls can distinguish themselves from the rest.

"Within a two-week stretch, we’re already done the first cycle through," he concluded. "Things are going to iron out with some teams. Things are going to happen this week and next week and you’ll get an indication of who are the best teams. We’ll hopefully hang around until the end."

Boys Tennis Finishing Up Regular Season by Next Week

Boys tennis is back over .500 with two big PAC-10 wins last week over Perkiomen Valley and Pope John Paul II. Now they'll face an Upper Perkiomen team that has only won one game thus far this year, today. That match is in progress.

"The coach down there has a lot of new guys," said head coach John Brennan. "It’s a building process for them. I’m sure he’s not happy with the wins and losses, but I’m sure they’re getting better every day. We’ve got to be ready to play. We had a nice Spring Break and didn’t play a match in over a week."

Owen J. Roberts is next on the list. The boys will face them on Thursday.

"We definitely want to build some momentum this week," Brennan said. "We want to get two wins over Upper Perk and Owen J. Roberts going into our last week of the season. We have two really big ones with Methacton and Boyertown next week."

The Second Annual Spring-Ford Invitational is on Saturday now - pushed back from two weeks ago. The same teams remain on the schedule, including Downingtown East, Manheim Central and Upper Merion. The competion kicks off at 9 a.m.

"This is the second year we’re doing it," said Brennan. "I did it in two parts. I was trying to get a better schedule and also trying to get really good competition for Tyler at first singles. It’s the format you’re going to play districts in if you actually make districts, too."

Brennan also noted that a match against Radnor has been added to the boys' schedule next week. He is hopeful the boys will perform well in their last eight matches.

"I’m really optimistic," he said. "I’m really happy with the way the kids are playing. They’re trying to come out every day. The kids are savvy with the things we’re teaching them. It’s just a matter of coming out and doing it on the court. We’re trying to get these last four wins in the PAC-10 season, but we can only control our destiny."

Senior leader and first singles Tyler Triolo is playing really well, according to Brennan and should do well in PAC-10 singles play when the time comes.

"I’m really excited the way Ty’s playing right now," Brennan said. "He had a good week, especially the win over Council Rock North. He had some back issues and it was good he came out and won that third set against the kid from Council Rock North and took care of business. Last week in PAC-10 play, I’m really looking forward to him driving himself through the PAC-10 singles tournament."

Boys Lacrosse Still Unbeaten in PAC-10

The boys lacrosse squad picked up two more PAC-10 victories late last week, over Pottsgrove and then Perkiomen Valley in the HEADstrong Rivalry Games - a charity weekend held at Widener University to support families dealing with blood cancer and research for the disease.

"Pottsgrove, it was a slow start for us," head coach Kevin Donnelly said. "First quarter was really very slow. It was a very physical game as well. Once we started to connect, it was good, but it did take a while to get there, certainly. So, we need to continue to learn how to start games, as well as hit the middles and the ends."

Donnelly said the boys enjoyed playing on Saturday at Widener and looked good.

"We actually came out relatively strong," said Donnelly. "We played well early and then kind of got a little stagnant into the middle sections. All-in-all, we played pretty well on a college campus, which is always neat for the guys. It’s always good to beat a PAC-10 rival."

The lone game on the schedule this week for the Rams is against Methacton on Friday. Donnelly is not sure what his boys will get in that game.

"The whole PAC-10 at this point is all over the place," said Donnelly. "Methacton’s had some really great scores against other teams and then they’ve had some ones that are not so good. I think they’re going to be a tough team, they always play us tough. It should be a good, competitive game. They always come out to play us tough for whatever reason that is. We hope to get a quick start and go from there."

As for star players, Donnelly pointed back to senior Zach Monzo and junior Paul Major.

"They’re continuing to light it up pretty well," he said. "Zach had four [goals] and one [assist] against PV and three [goals] and one [assist] against Pottsgrove. Paul was four and three against Pottsgrove and three and two against PV. They’re still our main source of our offense and Ian Hare has done a great job for us defensively. We need to get it to emanate throughout the entire team, but yeah, they definitely are lead-by-example."

Donnelly also noted the team has a lot of t-shirts to sell from the HEADstrong Rivalry Games.

"Anyone who supports blood cancer research and families going through blood cancer – it’s definitely a good cause," he concluded. "It's $15 a t-shirt and we have quite a few of them left."

Girls Lacrosse Back Over .500 with Win Last Week

Girls lacrosse head coach Amy Short was unsure last week whether or not her girls would come out to play against Perkiomen Valley last Wednesday, but the girls performed. They defeated the Vikings 15-4 in that game. The girls are 4-3 now.

"They did well," said Short. "It was probably one of their better games. I did tell them that I was proud of them. They came out hard and fast. We wanted to really focus on the fast break instead of the setup offense. For some reason, we’ve come out very slow. We were doing some drills in practice that focused on getting out and scoring the quick goal. I think it was evident in the game that they were moving the ball a lot quicker down on the attacking end and made a big difference."

The girls face off against Pottsgrove tonight under the lights. She's hoping the momentum from last week carries over to this week.

"I feel like we haven’t played a game in so long with Spring Break," Short said. "Hopefully they’re hungry to play and get out there to win the game. We’re starting the small schools and I don’t want them to get ahead of themselves. I still want them to work hard. I keep telling them my philosophy is any team can win any game on any given day. They have to keep that in their heads."

The Upper Perkiomen game has been moved from Friday to Thursday.

"I know they haven’t lost many players from last year and they were a strong team last year," said Short. "I know she’s been working with them. We are going to expect a tough game on Thursday."

Right now, the girls' top performer is sophomore Kira Gensler, who has definitely been one of the stronger players on offense and defense.

"She’s great in the midfield and is always working hard," Short said. "She never complains, never gives up and just wants to play. She loves lacrosse. I give her a lot of credit. She’s always the first one that’s ready to go to practice and help people out and does what she needs to do. Good kid."

Track & Field's O'Such Receives Scholarship to Duquesne for Mile and XC

Senior leader Joe O'Such will be signing his commitment to Duquesne today, where he received an athletic and academic scholarship to run the mile during track and field season and run cross country.

The team itself is doing well. The team faced off in a tri-meet last week against Boyertown and Methacton. As expected, the boys took both meets, but the girls fell to the defending champions.

"You always have to sort of favor at the beginning of the season the defending champs and the Methacton girls are the defending champs," said head coach Ken DeAngelo. "It was an outstanding meet to watch. Most of the times were district-qualifying times. We lost a couple of close relays. All-in-all we were pretty happy with our kids. The kids worked hard. I’ve got to give credit to the Methacton girls, they did a good job."

On the boys side, DeAngelo was happy with his sprinters.

"I think we had some great times in the sprints," he said. "Andrew Scanlan did a great job with a 100-meter sprint time of 10.8. Jesse Magalon did a great job in the 1600 meters, he ran a 4:26. David O’Such, Joe’s brother, ran a 50.9 in the open 400. They were outstanding times. We had a lot of pretty good times for the kids. It was a good meet."

The kids also participated in the Plymouth-Whitemarsh Colonial Relays on Saturday.

"The highlight of that meet was hopefully our boys running an eight flat would qualify them for the Penn Relays," DeAngelo said. "When you go to these big meets on a Saturday, that’s what you’re trying to do – qualify your better kids and develop your younger guys. The kids did really well overall."

The competitors in the 4x800 relay were Xavier Ingram, Jesse Magalon, David O’Such and Joe O’Such.

Also performing well were the girls in the discus relay. Akunna Okere and Jen Yeakle broke the all-time meet record, throwing a total of 209-feet-1.

Scanlan and Ryan Grosshanten also placed first on the boys side in the javelin.

This week, the Rams take on Pope John Paul II (in progress) and Perkiomen Valley on Saturday.

"Pope John meet I think will be a close meet with the girls," said DeAngelo. "I know they are 3-1. We have the same record. I guess when any teams go with the same record, you expect a pretty good meet. We have a pretty strong boys team, so we expect to do pretty well. We’re trying to change up the events. We don’t have same kids running same events. We’ll see what happens."

DeAngelo said he hopes to run the best kids in the PV meet to try to get a district-qualifying time, despite a group of injuries that will prohibit some from competing. Overall, he's hoping to see some good times from a variety of kids.

"I would say on the boys side, we’re looking to get some good times from Ryan Connelly in the 300-meter hurdles," DeAngelo said. "We’re looking to get a pretty good time from some of our boys, such as Joe O’Such in the 1600-meter run and Jesse Magalon in the 1600-meter run. I would just mention to you also, Joe O’Such signed an academic and athletic scholarship to go to Duquesne and he will be expected to run Cross Country and the mile there. Those two will be running the 1600 there. We have a young freshman named Paul Power. We expect a lot of good things from him in the future. He’ll be running the 3200 there. We’ll see how that works out."

"On the girls side for Saturday, we’re looking for Audrey Burger to have a good run in the 800 meters. We’re looking for a young girl named Samantha Christman, we’re looking for good things out of her in a distance race on Saturday."