SAUGUS — After a year and a half of dealing with delays, postponements and uncertainty, the Saugus softball team is ready to finally get back to a normal routine.
Sachems head coach Steve Almquist is very excited to get the season started. For the last two years, things haven’t necessarily been normal, especially for high-school athletes. Losing a year to COVID and playing a half season certainly takes away from the experience.
“One word to describe the feeling is ‘normalcy,’ it feels like it should,” Almquist said about the coming season. “The kids are extremely excited, just to get back to that sense of normalcy.”
After graduating seven seniors from a team that won the division last season — including the whole outfield and most of the infield starters — Almquist is ready to see just what his young team is capable of when starting new.
“Last year, we had a good season, we went 9-4 and 8-0 in the division,” said Almquist. “Winning the division last year for the first time in 10 years was very exciting, but now we’re starting from scratch. And I think we have a good shot to do that again with the talent coming in.”
However, while all team’s goals are to win a state title, and rightfully so, Almquist has a slightly different goal.
His main goal is to make sure that by the end of the season, his girls are better athletes than when they first stepped onto the diamond. He expects there to be rough patches or “growing pains” as he calls them, but throughout the season, making sure everyone is growing and learning is his main priority.
Saugus is set to kick off its first regular-season game against Salem on April 6 (4:30).
