The 2023 GlenOak Baseball team is having a successful season so far with a record of 16-6. The team came in with high expectations and has closely lived up to them. Having passed their win total last season which was 15.

The team currently sits at the 2nd seed of the Federal League standings behind Jackson. After a matchup that went down to the wire, GlenOak won 4-3 against Jackson to keep the hope of sharing the Federal League title alive.

“We all knew it was a big game so we were all keyed in,” senior Luke Senften said. “Everyone was focused and quite frankly I think we wanted to win very badly which led to us performing.”

The jump from 6th to (as of right now) 2nd place in the standings did not just happen overnight, the team had to endure challenging lifts, intense Friday night practices at the Hall of Fame Fitness Center and even early morning hitting sessions at Gentlebrook Sports Complex.

“The off-season really helped build chemistry between players,” senior Tommy Elfae said. “The Friday practices were very competitive and people took it seriously.”

These offseason obstacles proved to work off as GlenOak has an overall .267 batting average, including four players hitting over .300, a .958 team fielding percentage, a 2.99 team ERA (Earned Run Average) and finally a .828 stolen base percentage. 

“To improve my performance it was really just a change of approach and using the whole field,” junior Jackson Boles said. “Being able to drive the ball the other way really opened up my swing resulting in more hits.”

The team has the opportunity to share the Federal League with Jackson if they win all three games against Jackson and Lake.

“For the Jackson game, I wanted to keep them low scoring and let the offense do what they have been doing all year,” sophomore Ben Sibert said.

Winning or atleast sharing the Federal League Title has obviously been a goal for the team for years, with this being the closest they have been in years and are also in a good spot for the postseason tournament.

“The team goal is as long as we can keep going 1-0 every day, we can go as far as we want to,” Sibert said.

The team consisting of eleven seniors, five juniors and 3 sophomores has a very high ceiling and is hoping to have the most success they can this season.

“Big team maturity out of all of our guys this year and there is never a rep taken off,” Boles said. “All of us are committed to getting better and winning the day.”