JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – They’re good. They’re young. They’re only getting better.
The Baldwin softball team is off to an 11-1 start this season and ranked No. 1 in the News4JAX Super 6. The Indians have all of two seniors and are very much poised to turn in the best season in program history if they keep this early season pace up.
Keeping that pace can be tricky, but this Baldwin team isn’t exactly inexperienced, despite its age. The school is sixth through 12th grade, so it’s not uncommon to see young players up and down the roster. Those young players aren’t exactly a liability. Indians head coach Jennifer Shields — who has just one sub-.500 season in nearly 10 years in the position — said the drive to get better is infectious up and down the lineup.
Add that all together and the Indians could be positioned to go as far as they’ve ever gone in the postseason. Baldwin has reached the second round three times before, but never gone past it.
“Their willingness to work. And they want to be good this year. We had a little bit of taste of success last year, and they want more,” she said. “They really want to put in the work to get to the next level and go to the playoffs.”
The Indians had a very good team last season before hitting a rough patch.
That rough patch, however, came at the worst time.
Baldwin lost to West Nassau in the district final and then got shut down by Episcopal ace Maddie Latta in the playoff opener. The 20-win regular season was nice but falling flat at the finish made it feel a bit incomplete.
So much of that team returned this season that it was just natural for the Indians to pick right back up where they left off.
“It helps a lot being we played together last year. And I want to say most of the team has been together for two or three years,” said pitcher Piper Young, one of Baldwin’s two seniors. “It helps a lot with charisma, being able to connect with each other and just working together we can read each other well. We know each other, what we should be able to do, what we’re going to do. It helps out a lot.”
Added sophomore catcher Cali Hartung: “A lot of us have been together for about three or four years. I think that we play as a team together. We have a lot of chemistry on the team. We all love each other. We’re like family, so it definitely helps a lot.”
What better way to see how her team would fare this season than by Shields having the Indians dive right into a tough schedule. Baldwin started 6-0 before a 4-3 loss in eight innings to Baker County. The Indians have beaten Oakleaf twice, toppled last year’s Class 2A state runner-up University Christian and edged First Coast. They also took a slight measure of revenge with a 3-0 win over West Nassau on Tuesday night.
“You know, first week we had Keystone, Oakleaf, Baker,” Shields said. “And to get through those then, you know, some of the girls are like, OK, yeah, OK, maybe we got a little something going on. So yeah, we’re excited.”
Five Baldwin regulars are hitting .324 or better. Senior Kayla Robinson (.333) and eighth grader Jasmine Ramos-Merced (.345) have two home runs apiece. Young, who logged varsity innings as far back as the sixth grade, is unbeaten in the circle as the team’s ace. She’s lowered her ERA each season.
“The biggest thing we can improve on is just our energy. We have good energy, but we need to come together consistently throughout the game,” Young said. “We have ups and downs a lot through it. We just need to pull our energy together, just stay communicating, hitting, defense and we should be able to get it all.”