{"id":14674,"date":"2013-03-25T06:00:04","date_gmt":"2013-03-25T10:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=14674"},"modified":"2013-03-23T10:38:33","modified_gmt":"2013-03-23T14:38:33","slug":"season-preview-uhs-softball-youth-will-be-served","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=14674","title":{"rendered":"Season Preview: UHS softball \u2014 youth will be served"},"content":{"rendered":"

After losing seven starters from 2012, younger Indians will have to step up in 2013<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Large\"<\/a>

With a very young team, the Unionville High School softball team will be depending on veterans such as Amy Large, a junior, seen in action to 2013, to provider leadership.<\/p><\/div>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span>
\nEAST MARLBOROUGH \u2014 If the 2013 Unionville High School softball team is going to be successful, youth must be served.<\/p>\n

With only one returning senior \u2014 Mandy Hammond \u2014 the Indians, who begin play Monday by hosting West Chester East, will need some young players to step up to equal or surpass last season\u2019s 10-10 record.<\/p>\n

After losing six seniors from last season \u2014 and one player\u2019s family moved out of the district \u2014 this year\u2019s team will be much younger. But a lot of potential for success remains.<\/p>\n

Indians coach Janelle Hadly, in her second year since returning to run the program \u2014 she coached three years earlier \u2014 said she will likely be depending on a total of eight sophomores and one freshman getting regular playing time. With so few players coming back with varsity experience, the early season contests could feature something of a learning curve.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith having so many sophomores, we need experience playing at the varsity level,\u201d Hadly said. \u201cWe have the talent and the work ethic so we are looking forward to a season with a lot of growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"softball5\"<\/a>

Unionville catcher Kate Mims, seen here in 2012 action, one of just a handful of players with varsity experience returning for the 2013 season.<\/p><\/div>\n

The good news is that the players returning with experience are good ones \u2014 Hammond has already committed to continuing her career at Millersville University, while juniors\u00a0 (P-OF-1B) Amy Large and catcher Kate Mims were key players in 2012.\u00a0 Madi Ross, while one of the eight sophomores likely to be in the lineup, saw a lot of time in 2012 as a freshman.<\/p>\n

Sophomores Austin Langerhans (P-INF) \u2014 younger sister of varsity baseball catcher Kyle Langerhans, Elise Rocconi (P-INF), Tori Hojnacki (OF) and two juniors Jilly Malone (OF) and Meredith Kurey (INF) will be depended upon to fill out the day-to-day lineup.<\/p>\n

While they don\u2019t have much in the way of varsity experience, all have played at a high level and Hadly is confident that they will be able to make the transition this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe strength of the team is that a lot of them play year round softball on very competitive teams,\u201d Hadly said.<\/p>\n

The unknown is how these young players adapt and grow as the season goes on. Still Hadly says she is confident that the Indians will field a competitive team in 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still have some strong leaders returning and many talented sophomores who will be making an impact on the field,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After losing seven starters from 2012, younger Indians will have to step up in 2013 By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2014 If the 2013 Unionville High School softball team is going to be successful, youth must be served. With only one returning senior \u2014 Mandy Hammond \u2014 the Indians, who begin play […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[32,3063,266,7427],"class_list":["post-14674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-sports","tag-indians","tag-season-preview","tag-softball","tag-unionville-high-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14674\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}