Will 2010 be the Hornets' year?

By Bryan Foti
While the Plattsburgh City School District Administrative staff and the Board of Education are creating a budget that will likely see teacher cuts, tax raises and possible sports cuts, the Plattsburgh High School Baseball team is on the field preparing for their upcoming season.
The Plattsburg Hornets return seven players from a team last year that made it to the Section VII Class B Championship game before losing to Beekmantown 5 to 3. The team will be anchored around senior player Joe Kirkpatrick. In his junior season, Kirkpatrick had a great year posting a .380 batting average. His 23 RBI’s (Runs Batted In) lead the Hornet team. Pitching is strength for Kirkpatrick as well, last year he started 5 games for the Hornets and won all of them. He had a team leading 1.44 ERA (Earned Run Average). He had 33 strike outs as well.
Plattsburgh Head Coach Jim Manchester has high expectations for Kirkpatrick. “He is going to be an asset at the plate for us this year.” Manchester will have a number of solid players to choose from. Brendan Cortright will provide good pitching experience according to Manchester. Last year Cortright made four appearances as a pitcher. He posted a 1.66 ERA and had a 2-0 record.
Kevin Neiderer will do the catching duties for Plattsburgh this year. In 2009, Neiderer had a good year offensively batting .300. Manchester also said Neiderer will play the outfield along with John Zayas. Brett Gilman will play short-stop and hold down the middle of the infield.
With all of this talent the Hornets have high hopes going into the 2010 season. “We have kind of been the glass slipper of the league the past two seasons coming in 2nd place. This year we have a goal to win our league and represent Section VII in the States,” says Manchester.
The old cliché in baseball is that pitching and defense win games. The Hornets know this and they are practicing defense a lot. On the field the Hornets were doing a drill on rundowns and how to get an out. The team seemed to be executing the drill well but sometimes there were mistakes. “There is always going to be teaching involved, they are kids. We can live with physical mistakes but the mental ones are the ones we have to cut back on.”
Plattsburgh should be able to get off to a quick start in the season because they will have already had some game experience when they open play on April 19 and play Peru High School. On April 12 through April 16 the Hornets will be down in Mingo Bay, SC to play in a baseball tournament. Plattsburgh will be playing three games in a Round Robin Tournament. There is a lot that went into making it possible for the baseball team to go down to South Carolina. Plattsburgh Athletic Director Clifford "Joe" Staves says, “Coach Manchester made a proposal to the Athletic Office and the Superintendent with very specific conditions outlining the fact that the trip would be at no cost to the School District/Taxpayers. This proposal was presented for Board of Education for approval, and has been done so each year.” Manchester’s plan included a lot of fund raising. The Hornets did a bottle drive that raised 303 dollars. They also raised another 500 dollars from McSweeney's fundraiser and another 200 dollars was donated from Nuway/Plattsburgh City Taxi. They have a total balance of 906 dollars to spend on food. The trip did not get many complaints from parents or form the community even though the district is struggling financially. The players are very excited for the upcoming season. In practice they seemed much focused on their goal at task. Mitch Kilkeary who is a junior on the team is very excited about the opportunity to travel down to South Carolina. “It is going to be a real good time and should give us a lot of momentum heading into the season.” Team Chemistry should be able to help the Hornets this year. They return seven seniors and have a very talented junior class. Cortright says, “we have solid team chemistry, we are all friends, and have played together for a very long time. We are all little league compadres.” The players all have one thing on their mind this year and that is to win a championship and get to states. Joe Tolosky is a junior pitcher and outfielder he says, “We are expecting to win our division and we are going to try to make a splash at states if we get there.” The Hornets have a good shot to get back to a Section VII championship game. The Hornets are well coached and have a solid group of players on the team this year. Gilman says “I feel we have a good shot to make it far this year and we have a chance to do some special things this upcoming season.” The Hornets open the Section VII season against Peru and will start their journey that will hopefully lead them to a state playoff game.