As the umpire signals the last out of the final inning of the PVAC baseball championship, junior and captain Judah Trauben sprints to the pitcher’s mound to celebrate with the team, experiencing the first championship win for the JDS baseball team in over a decade. After losing to Burke in the regular season, the baseball team was able to dominate them in the championship 12-5 on May 10.
The season was not easy, according to Trauben. Seniors typically spend second semester on their Capstone trip in Israel, meaning the juniors are expected to take over leadership of the team for the remainder of the season. However, with the senior’s capstone trip being delayed and then canceled, the presence of seniors on the team at the beginning of the season helped the team get off to a good start. However, once the seniors left on their trip to Eastern Europe, the remaining 10 players began to struggle, losing their first and only game against Burke.
“Everybody needed to be present and give 100% because we have 10 kids on the team, if somebody’s off, then now we’re only at 90% effort,” Trauben said. “Two kids are in a bad mental space, now we have 80%.”
After the loss of the seniors, the team was forced to play without them, and Trauben and the other juniors needed to learn how to lead the team. Freshman AJ Salz felt this shift in leadership, and said the juniors truly did step up to lead the team to victory.
The team went 7-1 in the regular season, securing the first seed in the playoffs. According to Salz, players were incredibly close to one another, always supporting each other and never allowing disappointments in games to set them back.
“When somebody would get out, the next person up would kind of pick them up,” Salz said. “ … Each and every member of the team was supporting each other, and not letting one failure lead to multiple. And we kind of would just scratch it, be like goldfish and forget about it and move on to the next play.”
Winning the championship was a monumental milestone for the baseball team, who hadn’t won one since 2012. According to Trauben, no one on the team, including all three of the coaches who are JDS alumni, have ever witnessed the baseball team win the championship.
Head Coach Matthew Landy played baseball for the Lions when he was student, and felt overjoyed that he finally got the experience of winning a championship through coaching.
“One of the first things that I thought of was all my past teammates, to be honest, that we were so close to doing what we did on Sunday, but we fell short a couple of times,” Landy said. “I actually texted them. I was like ‘guys, I know it’s many years later, but this one, this one was for you guys, for the ones that we couldn’t end up winning.’ So it was kind of a full circle moment.”
The team this year had five freshmen, which made up half the roster. This meant that they were able to take on a more elevated role than in previous years, according to Landy.
The team narrowly made it to the championship game, winning 11-10 in the semifinals. They were nervous when they found out that the team coming in between them and the championship trophy would be Burke, the only team they had lost to, but shook off their nerves and came out victorious.
“I’ve been chasing a championship for varsity baseball for a long time,“ Landy said. “ … So to be able to experience that, it was amazing, especially with this group. It’s such a great group of guys. I have a lot of love for this group.”
