By Michael McDonald, UW News Lab

With the first game of the 2011 spring sports season behind them, Ballard High School’s baseball and softball teams are harboring playoff hopes.

Last year the baseball team had an up-and-down season that ended just short of the playoffs. At one point during the season, Ballard even beat two of the top ten ranked teams in the 4A division, Newport and Redmond. Head coach John Lamm knows that those two teams will be tough competition again this season.

“Redmond and Newport are the teams to beat this year,” said Lamm. “Redmond has a couple of players [Dylan Davis and Michael Conforto] who will get drafted.”

The Beavers will be returning a top player of their own, in starting pitcher Danny Thompson, who will play baseball at Princeton next season, but the team is young this season.

“We have five or six seniors, but they’re mostly pitchers,” said Lamm. “We’ll probably be running five sophomores on the field as starters.”

Ballard has no major coaching changes for this season, but is bringing back a former player to help coach the pitchers. Nico Van der Ven played varsity baseball for the Beavers before an injury derailed his senior season.

“It's great to have someone around who can relate to pitchers on that level,” said Lamm. “Someone who knows when it can be taken away from you. It's a nice message to instill into the kids.”

More than anything, coach Lamm wants his team to be a place where players can just relax and play.

“What we want to do is provide a baseball haven where people can play baseball and not have to worry about anything else,” said Lamm. “If we can find some leaders, then we can become a better team. We want to use baseball to make better men, and if we can make a good team out of that, that’s great.”

The Ballard softball team will be looking back at the strides they made last year. The team went 8-11, after managing just one win the season before.

Head coach Kyle Gray will be entering his third year as the softball team’s head coach and he's very satisfied with the direction the program is going in.

“This program is growing fast,” said Gray. “Two years ago, we only had 19 girls try out. Now, we should be the only school in Kingco with a JVC team.”

Ballard’s varsity team has a number of top performers returning from last year’s team, including sophomores Andrea Jewett and Brittney Blokker and seniors Bernie Cardon and Jamie Thelen. The team boasts a mix of experience and youth, with five seniors, four juniors and five sophomores.

Three new coaches will be helping out in various capacities with the softball teams. Elisa Vatn and Gretchen Gray are Ballard alumni that are coming back as assistants to the varsity and junior varsity teams, respectively. Sara Murphy will be the head coach of the newly-formed JVC team.

League competition looks to be tough for Ballard this season. Coach Gray noted Woodinville and Inglemoor as two of top teams in Kingco. Inglemoor made it to the 4A state semifinals last season.

With increased interest and improving play, Ballard softball looks to be on the rise for years to come, something that coach Gray has been happy to be a part of.

“It says a great deal about our girls now and the girls these last couple years at all levels promoting our program,” said Gray. “It's been so great to watch them grow.”

Visit BallardNewsTribune.com regularly for the latest news and updates of BHS's spring sports.