Andrew Milligan is one of just five seniors on the 2014 Warrior squad. Milligan hopes he can be a key piece in a very special season for Wawasee. (Photo by Nick Goralczyk)

SYRACUSE – The Wawasee baseball team wants to win now.
The players are tired of finishing near the bottom of the Northern Lakes Conference, losing games late and falling short in the postseason.

For the first time in years there seems to be an aura of confidence that surrounds the members of the Warrior baseball club. Players spirits are high and the team thrives off of the chemistry that is projected from its senior leaders.

“We’ve all played together since we were eight years old,” said Wawasee senior Andrew Milligan. “I feel like we’re brothers.”

Fellow senior Jordan Currie backed up his teammate’s statement.
“The bond we have goes deeper than just our time we spend on the baseball field,” said Currie. “We hang out after practice and in the offseason.”

“It’s kind of like our own baseball clique,” said Currie while laughing.
Currie and Milligan are just two of a group of five seniors that will certainly be the core for the Warriors this season, a season that will provide Wawasee its third head coach in as many years.

This past summer Wawasee hired one of its own as the new face of the baseball program, Brent Doty.
Doty graduated from Wawasee in 2002 and was a three-sport athlete for Wawasee in football, basketball and, of course, baseball. His success in baseball led to a collegiate career as a Mastodon at IPFW. Since taking the job Doty has been in somewhat of a surreal state.

“It’s a dream come true, it’s my dream job,” stated Doty. “After I graduated from here and I went on to play in college I knew I would give anything up to get back here and coach.”

Senior Gage Fannin has appreciated the attention his class has received from its coaches.

“I really like what Coach Doty has done so far,” said Fannin. “In recent years I feel like our coaches focused more on the younger kids and did not spend as much time working with the seniors. Coach Doty focuses on everybody, the whole team, including us seniors. He told us that we are big part of what he wants to get done this season.”

Doty has made it clear to his team that this season can be a very successful one.

“Kids have bought in to our vision in the short time we’ve worked together,” said Doty. “We want to bring a championship back to Wawasee. It has been way too long since we’ve had one in baseball and the outlook is bright I think.

“I talked to the guys and asked them why we bother striving for mediocrity. Why not go 28-0? Our goal should be perfection. If we don’t achieve it, that’s okay. We will learn from our mistakes. We want to always be building, always be moving forward and always be getting better.”

Perhaps the best line the enthusiastic Doty gave in his interview was his shortest. When talking about postseason and conference success, Doty simply stated, “Hey, why not us?”

The winds of change seem to have blown in a fresh breeze of confidence for a program that has been stuck in the cellar for far too long. The Warriors season will begin with a scrimmage at home against Churubusco on Saturday March 29 at 1 p.m. The real action begins on Tuesday April 1 when the Warriors will welcome in Bethany Christian for the season opener slated for a 4:30 p.m. start.