The Brien McMahon Senator wraps up their season tonight against Bridgeport Central at Pride Field, and it has been quite the forgettable season. It is an understatement to say the team is disappointed with their 2-14 record. If you asked many of the players on the team right now, many of them would probably still say that they feel the team has the talent to have been much better. So what went wrong?

If you watched or followed the team this year, you probably agree that the team’s struggles were largely based on one key issue that is so monumentally important in baseball, timing. The team seemed to struggle in the clutch all year. From opening Day against the Norwalk High to their most recent game in Hamden, it always seemed like the team was one clutch hit away from winning more than half their games. The best example of this was probably the aforementioned game in Hamden, the team only struck out twice, and both came in the last two innings! But the team left eleven men on base and lost 1-0 in possibly the most heartbreaking loss of the year. It seemed to highlight the team’s overall struggles.

However, the season was not just a black hole of negativity, there were some positives on the team. Wil Stalzer has become one of the best overall players in the FCIAC. He leads the team in just about every stat at the plate while playing MLB-level defense in center field. He is the #1 player on the team to watch for the next season, which will be his senior year. Another particularly impressive player was Sam Castro, the Freshman who consistently hit at the top of the lineup this year, and showed his versatility as well, playing games at leftfield, second base, and shortstop. He surprised a lot of people this year and will impact the team for years to come. 

I also feel inclined to mention the underappreciated job Dillon King did this past season for the JV team. After not making the team in 2022, Dillon worked all year to get back into the program. When he did, he made the most of it. Dillon started at first base in all but one of the JV games, he hit close to .600 and drove in half the team’s runs! With two of the three varsity first basemen heading off to college after this season, Dillon will look to make a big impact with the team in his senior season next year.

Good teams have bad seasons all the time, it is a matter of how they bounce back that defines a program. Our baseball team has the talent necessary to bounce back in 2024, the only question is if they believe the same.