The spring sports season has flown by for section 2, as the brackets for the playoffs have just been released. Shenendehowa’s teams have had outstanding seasons, with three teams being seeded #1 coming into the brackets: Boys lacrosse, softball, and baseball.
All 3 of these teams were section champions last year and are hoping to repeat their success.
Shen softball won sectionals and made it all the way to states last year, but fell short in the finals. Senior Emily Baumes has hopes that they can make it that far again. She however says, “having the 1 seed puts a lot of pressure and people rooting against us, so we want to stay strong and make it back to states.”
To accomplish this, Emily says that the team has been working hard in practice and on their flaws in order to be the best they can possibly be. The softball team has their first playoff game on Tuesday May 21st against Saratoga.
Shenendehowa boys lacrosse has had similar success this season, going undefeated coming into the playoffs. Senior Freddy Hicks says “In the section, we have shown we are one of the best teams if not the best team”, and that they deserve the 1 seed. Similarly to softball, the teams ultimate goal is to make it to the state tournament.
Boys lacrosse has their first game on Friday May 24th against Saratoga. The team is using this long gap from the regular season into the postseason to hold high tempo practices.
After finishing the season 10-2 in the league Shen Baseball was seeded #1 which the team felt was well deserved. They have met many goals that they set for themselves which has helped them get this far.
Baseball was in a best of 3 game series vs CBA they won the first game 2-1, lost the second game 5-4 and won the third game 10-7. They now will be playing a best of 3 series against Saratoga in the Sectional Final on May 23rd, May 24th and May 26th if needed all at 7pm.
Shen Baseball had a successful season last year making it to the state championship, Senior Jason Clawson said, “Our goal is to win sectionals and hopefully make it back to the state tournament like last year but essentially come out on top.”
He continued to say that they need to focus on the moment and just go game by game. They are capable of making a good run but they have to “focus on going 1-0 each day”.
A team new to Shen, girls flag football, is going into the playoffs seeded #4. Senior Serena Suchdeve believes the team should have been seeded higher, as “although we had a rough start to the season, we have been playing really well recently.”
The team’s recent momentum should be a great motivator for the girls to play their best. Suchdeve exclaims that they feel ready for the playoffs, as she says they have been “practicing a lot, going over and finalizing our plays.” Their first game was Friday May 17th when they beat Niskayuna 25-20. The Second game (semis) was against #1 seed Albany on May 20th which resulted in a 48-7 loss for the plainsmen.
Girls Lacrosse coming in seeded #4 played their first game on Thursday, May 16th and pulled off a win against Guilderland.
This win was great for the team because Senior Eva Pflomm thinks “All the teams were evenly matched this year. Most of our games were really close but we just couldn’t pull out the win in some games.” This first round win will hopefully put the team on a roll.
They play their next game, the semi final on Tuesday, May 21, against #1 seeded Saratoga. The regular season game was close, the team collectively feels that if they “show up ready to play” then they could pull through with another win.
