Galway Varsity Baseball Gets New Coach

           The Galway Golden Eagles baseball team is moving forward with a new varsity baseball coach. Mark Kalinkewicz was named the head varsity baseball coach earlier in the school year, and now looks to transition from the modified level to the varsity level. Kalinkewicz begins his rookie year at the helm after Toby Youngblood was relieved of his duties after four years as varsity coach.

            Seniors Zachary Hartman and Ben Manna are embracing the change, and looking forward to seeing what Kalinkewicz brings to the game. Hartman said he looks forward to getting a new perspective on everything.

 “It’ll be a little weird with new policies that are different from Youngblood,” said Manna. “Coach Youngblood was laid-back, fun to be around, but knew when to be serious.”
Hartman added, “I’ll miss Coach Youngblood’s intensity in practice and in games.”

Hartman doesn’t believe it’ll be too hard to adapt to the change. “It’s always difficult when you change, but it’ll be easy because you typically have different coaches when you move up different levels anyway.”

However, both believed their new coach was right for the job. Manna said Kalinkewicz played when he was younger, and has a wide knowledge of sports. Manna added that Kalinkewicz being an elementary gym teacher at the school has benefits. “Coach K saw us grow up, he knows who we are, and what type of players we are.”            

            Galway baseball has struggled to maintain consistency from year to year. With only two trips to sectionals in the past five years, both under different coaches, Galway is looking to continue their evolution into a winning program at the varsity level.

 After a 2009 season which saw the Golden Eagles get eliminated from Class C sectionals in a 9-8 defeat to Mechanicville, Youngblood took over the reins. Youngblood’s highlight season came in 2012. The 2012 season saw an upset of historic proportions when they were able to defeat the Spa Catholic Saints, 7-6, in eight innings to snap the Saints then 32-game win streak against Western Athletic Conference opponents. The Eagles finished the season with a 9-7 record, and a postseason appearance. That postseason appearance lasted as long as the previous one as Galway held an early 4-0 lead, but lost to the eventual sectional finalist Panthers, 6-4. That team had five players named WAC North All-Stars, including Manna’s older brother, Nick.

Coach Toby Youngblood had praise for the team. “We had another good team coming back from last year,” Youngblood said. “Had a great pitching staff, and returned a lot of players.” Youngblood said that there are players with all-star talent on this year’s team.

Youngblood admitted it was hard to leave a program like Galway. “Last season, and the season before that, we got the team to being a winning program.”

Galway begins practice for the 2014 season on March 3^rd, which according to Hartman means the beginning of the team making sectionals with a top eight seed.
An e-mail to Coach Kalinkewicz was not immediately returned for comment.