A new direction under new head coach Dan Eng has a close-knit Arlington fastpitch team excited about their upcoming season.
Team co-captain and returning second-team all-Wesco North catcher Sheena Twitchell said the girls look forward to working with Eng, who has served as assistant program coach at Jackson High and coached club ball before that, which plays 11 months out of the year.
Though only a few weeks into their practice schedule, Eng seems to have won over his players with his coaching style.
Weve learned a lot. He has a lot of experience and works well with us, said Twitchell, a senior who is weighing a commitment to play for Colorado State University next spring. Each individual player spends time with the coach.
Added sophomore Kristen Allen, Practices are so much quicker.
As Eng describes his coaching philosophy, it quickly becomes clear that his approach is less about mechanics and more about using the sport as a teaching opportunity. First and foremost, the athletes are students first, he said.
What I try to teach is sportsmanship, that its not just during the game. They have to practice this, because they have to take this throughout life, Eng added. And whether they do it on a team here or in a job or they develop their own team, they have to teach sportsmanship, which is how to get along together and how to build chemistry because it is with that, theyll be successful.
Mechanics-wise, Eng said he is planning to start last years pitching rotation of sophomore Christina Rayner, junior Kate Nicely and sophomore Allie Milless, who helped lead the Eagles to a 12-8 season.
One advantage the varsity team already has as the season kicks off is the familiarity that comes from playing together and against each other, in some cases as far back as their T-ball days. Twitchell added that a number of the girls played together on an Amateur Softball Association team.
Though in his first weeks of coaching in Arlington, even Engs history overlaps with some of his athletes.
A lot of these kids play club ball, and I have about five that play club on the team, and Ive seen them before or Ive had them on my team when they were 12 or 13, Eng said. Since I started back in Little League with my own daughter, Ive seen some of these girls before, or sisters of these girls.
In addition to all of the players history of playing together, they all seem to just plain like each other.
Co-captains Twitchell and senior center fielder Vanessa Taylor have already hosted a get together, which Eng said he considers a vital team-building tool.
For team bonding and team chemistry, thats one of the things I look for, the volunteers who do that, he said. They get together and do girl things, and its part of the bonding, its part of the leadership.