Health & Fitness
Rocket Fuel - Softball's Mark Hernandez wants his team to finish strong
The Needham High School Girl's softball team has two games remaining and certainly would like to end their season with at least one win.
After losing their 14th game in a row on Wednesday against the Newton North Tigers, Needham head coach Mark Hernandez explained that his team is tired, which is certainly true statement. The Rockets didn’t play well against a Tigers team that posted at least two runs every inning and beat them, 14-1.
“I’m not making excuses for them, but we’re tired,” Hernandez said. “That’s why I didn’t stand [in the outfield] all day long [conversing with my team]. We’ve got one tomorrow and one Friday.”
The Rockets are spending their final week of the regular season playing a majority of makeup games and certainly, it has taken a toll on Hernandez’s young squad.
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“It’s a huge factor for us because we’re not fortunate enough to have a lot of practices because with our freshmen team, we don’t have enough kids,” Hernandez said.
“It’s just been one of those years and again, not making excuses [because] it is what it is, so our inexperience hurts us, our inexperience at the plate hurts us, but we’re building. I didn’t expect it to happen this year, but we’ve made strives this year. We’ve won one more than we did last year and we still have two more to go.”
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Needham will conclude their regular season with two more games against Norwood on Thursday (3:45pm) and Austin Prep on Friday (6:30pm) before their 2011 campaign comes to an end. Although, according to Hernandez, he just wants his team to finish the season by playing well.
“I want to play well and take each inning at a time, try to win or even each inning and just stay in the game,” Hernandez said. “My goal is to just play well.”
