Emily Wood & Isabel Hetherington
Sports Editors
Looking up at the mound, spectators are puzzled to see that the pitchers throwing strikes aren’t upperclassmen but rather sophomores JR Anderson and Ali Reilly. At the start of this spring baseball and softball season, these players are emerging as pitching threats.
JR Anderson, having pitched his first game on varsity this year against New Milford Green Wave by chance, proved himself as he retired eight straight hitters, striking out four of them. “I wasn’t even supposed to start this year, so getting so much attention has been really cool,” he said. “This is the best I have ever pitched.”
JR, who has been playing baseball since the second grade, took on pitching as a third grader. “We weren’t allowed to start pitching until 3rd grade,” he said. “My coach asked me if I wanted to pitch and I said yes. I guess I wasn’t very good at hitting, so I focused on pitching.”
The years of experience in pitching seem to have paid off as JR made varsity this year for baseball. “Varsity is a lot more fun,” he said. “There is a bigger stage and people get a lot more into it. There are more opportunities, if you perform well, to get recognized.”
Coaching JR for the first time this year, varsity baseball Coach Mitch Hoffman said, “He has over exceeded my expectations.”
According to Coach Hoffman, one key to JR’s success is his fearlessness on the mound. “He is very determined and not afraid to fail. He comes right at hitters and attacks the zone. The role of a pitcher is to be a leader and set the tone of the game. JR has done a great job of this.”
Looking to the future JR said he hopes to see gold. “I definitely want to win the state championships by my senior year,” he said. “I want to be able to lead a good legacy so that everyone remembers us”. In the meantime, however he said is just trying to step up his game. “I just want to get in more pitches and improve on my throwing.”
“JR’s future is very bright,” Coach Hoffman said. “I see him as a starter for the next few years.”
Ali, on the other hand, started pitching for the varsity softball team last year when she was only a freshman. However, she said this year she has been given more chances to prove herself. “I think this year I definitely have had more opportunities to pitch in games. Last year, I was the second string pitcher and Cydney was number one. We now split the games so we get an equal amount of pitches.”
According to varsity softball Coach Danielle Simoneau, Ali has come a long way since freshman year as she begins to pitch more frequently in games. “Ali is definitely a lot more mature this year,” she said. “She has turned herself into a pitcher, and not a thrower. She has surpassed the ability that she thought that she was capable of.”
Ali started playing when she was in third grade, but said she didn’t decide to start focusing on pitching until she was in sixth. “I basically started pitching because no one else really wanted to, but I ended up throwing really well, so my coach told me to go and see a pitching coach,” she said.
In the team’s game against Staples on April 18, Ali pitched an entire seven innings, only allowing two runs on seven hits and two walks while striking out six. “Ali has improved a lot since her freshman year, her velocity is up and her control has really improved,” senior teammate Katie Krueger said.
For the rest of the season, Ali said her main goal is to gain as much confidence and experience as possible. “I mainly want to work on being more confident and to have more trust in my abilities,” she said. “But I also want to try and bring the team to a victory in the FCIAC.”
As Ali continues to progress, Coach Simoneau is very confident in her abilities to make a name for herself. “Ali’s future can be whatever she chooses it to be,” she said. “If she continues to work hard at it, Ali could be a very dominant pitcher.”
