After narrowly missing out on the playoffs last season, the Marblehead softball team is getting ready to get back on track with head coach Johnny Gold saying he is “excited” about the upcoming season.
“I’m very excited. Every year I am, but this year in particular I’m really excited,” Gold said. “We return basically the whole team which is rare. I think I only had that happen once before.”
The Magicians lost one player (Anna Bobowski) from last years team and Gold believes the extra year of experience will be beneficial this spring.
Last year, Marblehead suffered a lot of injuries leading to players having to play other positions. One player who had to move positions was Ruby Calienes.
“Last year our starting pitcher (Tessa Francis) was hurt after our second game,” Gold said. “Ruby Calienes did a great job of filling in and being our pitcher. Ruby is a co-captain and will see some time on the mound from time to time, but she’s a great second baseman and will spend most of her time there.”
Tessa Francis is just one of the players Gold is looking forward to having back this year.
“Tessa Francis will be our starting pitcher this year. Having her back will help us out greatly. We are also getting Hailey Schmitt back who got hurt halfway through the season because of an ankle injury,” Gold said. “Luka Bornhorst has colleges look at her already. She can really play and I’m looking forward to having her again this year.
“Both the Mortensen sisters (Ashley and Isabell) are returning and are excellent ball players,” Gold said. “Lyla McGovern is a junior and has been on varsity for two years now. I think she’s also primed for a big season.”
Unfortunately for the Magicians, they will be without left fielder and co-captain Ila Bumagin after recently injuring her knee.
“Ila Bumagin tore her ACL skiing. She was our starting left fielder so she’s gone for the year,” Gold said. “I feel really bad for her. It hurts even more because it’s her senior season. It’ll be the next player up for us. She’ll be there with us and supporting us.”
Gold mentioned some of teams goals are to get back into the tournament and try to win their division.
“One of the goals is to get back to the state tournament. That’s a huge goal of ours,” Gold said. “We also want to try to win our conference division and to learn from last year and play better this year. This is a fun group to be around.”
Gold talked highly of the teams in the Northeastern Conference and how every game wants teams to know Marblehead will be competitive until the final out.
“I want everyone to think of us as a competitive team that won’t quit. There’s a lot of good teams in our conference starting with Peabody,” Gold said. “They’re one of the best teams in the states and we’ll have to play the likes of Danvers, Peabody, Gloucester, and Saugus. It’s like every game we have a tough opponent. It’s a great conference. It’s an honor to play these teams but we want them to know we’re going to be competing as hard as we can against them.”
Both Gold and his players are excited to get the season started and get back to the state tournament.
“I’m really excited about coaching this group. They are hard workers who listen and want to get better,” Gold said. “I know they’re just as excited. I talked to many of them about how they’re doing and how school is and they keep saying they can’t wait for the season.”
