High School Junior, Sam Dyer pitches for the Marauders earlier this year. Photo by Bill Croney, The Northfield News The Northfield Marauders kicked off their 2010 season with their 14th consecutive spring training trip to Cocoa Beach, Florida for seven days of intense practice and scrimmages to prepare for the upcoming season.

This year’s Marauder team is young but very talented. The team this year is led its three Captains; Nick Skinas, Adam Daley, and junior Eli Diebold, also look for contributions from juniors Sam Dyer and Blaine Pedley, sophomores Zach Daley, Billy Whaley, Hobie Warren, Theo Tillas, freshmen Kevin Hebert, Brandon Pedley, and Gavin Porter.

When the team landed in Orlando the skies were clear, the air was humid, and the temperature was a bit warmer then when we left Vermont.

All 22 players, 4 coaches and Roger LeClair, a ten year veteran of the trip, piled into the vans and headed off to the Cocoa Expo Sports complex. The vans arrived around 1:00pm and the players and coaches settled in to the dormitory. Later that night, the team went to the local Olive Garden for a team dinner and ran the restaurant out of raspberry ice tea and bread sticks. After dinner the team returned to the expo for an early night of sleep with the first batting practice scheduled for the following morning at 6:45 am.

The second day of the trip represented the typical day for the Marauders in Cocoa. The morning started with batting practice at 6:45am with each room arriving every 15 minutes until every room had finished the session. The session consists of tee work, soft toss, front toss, hitting machine, and live batting practice. The hitting machine is an adventure to say the least, just ask James Kelley, who was the unwilling recipient of a wild pitch. After each room passes through the hitting stations they head into the cafeteria for a quick breakfast that rarely changed menu items but is still very good after an early morning work-out. The team then changes and heads out to one of the ten baseball fields for its daily practice from 9:00- 11:30am. At practice the team is all business and focused on the lesson of the day. The lesson could be on bunt coverages, run downs, 1st and 3rds, or any number of situations that could arise in a game.

After practice finishes the team retreats from the sun to the dorms for quick but much needed shower and lunch. The afternoon brings on the only period of that day that is free. Most of the players agree with Coach Pecora that the beach is the way to go. They spend the afternoon swimming, tanning or in many cases burning, surfing, or playing very competitive volleyball especially if Billy Whaley is involved. The free time wraps up around 4:00pm and the team heads back to the expo for dinner and a 7:00pm game under the lights on the stadium field. The spring nights in Cocoa provide a perfect clear warm night for playing baseball. The games wrap up by 10:00pm and it’s back to the dorms to order Papa Johns pizza for a late night snack. If by chance there is no game the team finds some local activity to pass the time. It could range from a trip to the mall, a 3d movie, or on our last night we go to the local go-kart track for a few races.

This year’s trip also involved a trip to the Kennedy Space Center. At the space center we get to see an actual Apollo era rocket. The actual size cannot be described in this article except maybe to say that the old Yankee stadium could fit on the roof of the building that is used to assemble the rockets with over an acre of room to spare for parking.

At the space center we also get to see many videos and facilities of actual space missions. This year almost the entire team made the trip to the space center even though it was many players second time going.

We also got to experience the sonic boom of the shuttle re-entering the atmosphere this year because it landed during one of our practices at the expo. The boom was loud enough to make a few of the players and coaches jump.

We also went to a minor league game at Space Coast Stadium. We watched the Brevard County Manatee’s play the Dunedin Blue Jays. The team brought a little flavor of the northeast and led the crowd in Sweet Caroline between innings. Nick Skinas also was defeated by a couple of twelve year olds in a game between innings. Many of the local fans enjoyed our company commenting on how much fun the Marauder’s have, watching and participating at the game. The seniors also played the annual prank of embarrassing coach Pecora by getting the jumbo-tron to wish him a happy birthday.

The trip to Florida allows us to prepare for the upcoming season by team building, practicing, and experiencing baseball in a different manner then back home. Coach Pecora shares with us each year the history behind this trip and the importance of it to our program.

Fifteen years ago Ed Hockenbury convinced Coach Pecora to take his baseball team to Florida for spring training. The year before the first Florida trip Coach Hockenbury passed away. Coach Pecora shares with us that he was a great father, coach, and friend to many here in Northfield. I have also heard that he was a man of passion, wisdom, and love. He contributed many years to our program always preaching the importance of playing baseball and more importantly going about life the right way. Coach Pecora shares with us that this trip has never been about greed and is not something to brag about. It is for Coach Hockenbury and for our team to remember him and his legacy of doing things the right way.

Northfield baseball would like to thank everyone in the community for helping with all our fundraisers and efforts to keep this great tradition going. We would also like to thank Coach Pecora and the entire coaching staff for all of their time and effort in Florida and through out the season to come. We would also like to congratulate Debbie Barney on winning the Mother’s Day Rivalry Raffle she will sitting 25 rows behind home plate for the Red Sox vs. Yankees game on May 9th.