Despite slow start, Xavier Hawks baseball team still confident it can achieve its goals this season

APPLETON – The forecast for the Xavier baseball team was sunshine bright before the season started.

Many favored them to win the Bay Conference title with a roster filled with eight of nine starters back from the 2023 season, with four of those players planning to play college baseball when the time comes.

But when paper projections came to on-the-field games, things have not gone quite as well as coach Tim Harikkala expected.

The Hawks are off to a 2-4 start, including 1-4 in the Bay Conference, but Harikkala and the players are confident they can hit all their goals this season.

“We’re good up and down the lineup,” Harikkala said. “We have a lot of guys who can contribute.”

And it starts on the mound.

“We have Parker (Bleck). When he’s good, he’s one of the best in our conference,” Harikkala said. “He can win a game on his own when he’s good. That’s helpful. I don’t think there are too many other staffs that have a dominant No. 1.”

Add in senior pitchers Reid Hietpas and Tyler Brightman and there is potential for the Hawks to make the opponents struggle to score runs.

“We do have a lot of arms,” Harikkala said. “We’re deep that way. Obviously, there are a lot of things we need to clean up that way.”

Senior Luke Krull said the goal for the Hawks is one that every high school baseball team has in Wisconsin – to end the season playing at Fox Cities Stadium in the state tournament.

“We’ve got a lot of returning seniors," Krull said. “And guys from last year. We brought back eight of our nine starters. Obviously, the goal is to get to the Timber Rattlers stadium.

“To make it back to state, we have to get out of our regional. We have a hard regional every year. Most who make it out of the regional make it to state.”

Harikkala expects Xavier’s hitting will improve as the weather becomes more baseball friendly.

“We can definitely hit the ball at times,” said Hietpas, a senior infielder/pitcher. “But right now, the little things are killing us. We’ve got to be better mentally prepared, not make those little throwing errors, not being able to move guys on bases and too many strikeouts.”

Krull points to the Hawks' experience as the reason they can overcome the slow start and start winning games.

“What I think our strength is is our senior leadership,” he said. “We’ve got 11 of our 15 guys on varsity who are seniors. We’re senior heavy. Most are playing. It’s leadership.

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“We can do a better job of hitting and pitching because currently we haven’t done a very good job at either of those. I’d say overall our leadership is what's going to turn us around.”

Hietpas added, “Because when times are tough, people like to drop their heads a little bit. Right now, we just have to look to the next game and play our best.”

This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Xavier Hawks baseball team confident despite shaky start