‘Arm Care Week’ prepares softball and baseball teams for upcoming season

By Matt Pascarella

Windham’s pitchers and catchers have begun preparing for the upcoming spring season. This year is a little different as the Maine Principals Association has renamed what used to be “pitchers and catchers week” to “arm care week” and is open to all softball and baseball players as they warmed up for the season during a week-long clinic at Windham High School.

Windham sophomore Maddix Mordridge works on pitching
in preparation for the upcoming spring athletic season 
during an Arm Care Week clinic at Windham High
School on Thursday, March 26.
PHOTO BY MATT PASCARELLA  

SOFTBALL

“The big thing for us this week with so many graduating seniors last year and so many new freshmen this year is getting the group to start to bond,” said Windham softball coach Darcey Gardiner. “While we do focus on building up pitches as the week goes on, we also put a lot of focus on the entire program's overhand throwing. We also work a lot on stretching; between "band work" for the arms and shoulders, all the way down to hip stretches for better sprinting mechanics – anything we can do to help keep these athletes' bodies healthy throughout a demanding season is important.”

Senior Addison Caiazzo knows she will be in the circle more than in previous seasons.

“Getting to know some of these new faces because we have quite a few freshman and new softball players coming in (is important),” said Caiazzo. “Throwing strikes and trusting the defense behind me (is her plan while in the circle) ... I play travel and I’ve really focused on pitching there rather than being a positional player and taking this week and the tryout week pretty seriously.”

Sophomore Yani Kostopoulos said she’s been to catcher clinics, and this arm care week is about getting everything finetuned.

“We’ve been working on some running,” said Kostopoulos. We’ve been doing some blocking drills, working with pitchers you might be catching for this season and just getting to know them and getting that relationship built. (Our goal is) to have fun, have a good team dynamic and to win as much as we can.”

BASEBALL

For Chris Doughty, Windham’s varsity baseball coach, he and the other coaches want to see who’s been working in the off season and whose arms are ready for this. They use this as a week of conditioning, endurance training, strength training, agility training while starting to build a foundation and a culture for this team.

Doughty said he wants 15 to 16 players who play for the name on the front of their jersey instead of the name on the back. 

“We want to improve on our baseball IQ,” said Doughty. “Two things we always demand from our players are max effort and good attitude. Those are the only two things you can control. So, this week gives us a good early look at the pitchers and catchers from that perspective. It’s a good opportunity to see how the team meshes and to work on the culture and attitude for the season. We got a lot of young players who are super talented so it’s exciting to see what they’re going to do.”

Sophomore Maddix Morgridge wants to pitch to be in control of the game and to trust himself enough to control the game. He has a goal of improving his accuracy as a pitcher and hopefully being able to start on Windham’s varsity team. He’s working to improve his velocity as well.

“Keep the ball in front of me, be the anchor of the team, be loud and be positive,” is the goal of freshman catcher Ryan Manning. “I’ve caught since I was 10. Now it’s a chance to be on the varsity team. Wins are nice but building team moral is a season goal.”

Manning says that he’s worked on a lot of conditioning, and a lot of agility which is nice to build up before tryouts and the new season.

This is shaping up to be good seasons for both teams, coaches say. <