The new season will mark a new era for Lions baseball, as they welcome new skipper Lance Faxon. Faxon was a longtime assistant at Philomath High School being part of a number of successful Warrior teams and will look to bring some of that success to Cottage Grove. 

“We played Cottage Grove a ton when I was at Philomath,” said Head Coach Lance Faxon. “They were always super competitive games. So, getting a chance to be in a program that not too far in the past won a league title. And a lot of coaches don’t get the opportunity to take over a program that’s had the kind of success that Cottage Grove has had in the recent past. So, I’m excited about that. It’s not a complete overhaul, but it’s working on a good program that’s had success in the past that we can build off of.”

While last season was tough for the Lions, it brought some much-needed experience to everyone for a team that only had one senior and four juniors on the roster. This year Cottage Grove is hoping to build on those experiences from last year. 

“We’re trying to use last year as some motivation,” said Faxon. “We get to change some things from last year, we have to learn from what went wrong last year that we can improve on now. And all our guys have been through it. Rarely do you have a high school team with as much experience as we had, because they all got it last year and so those guys can learn from that.” 

Despite the challenges from last year the Lions are ready to turn the page and go into 2022 with a new outlook and fresh expectations. 

“Just getting that normalcy back is going to be good,” said Faxon. “The juniors have never played a non-league baseball game and that’s just crazy to think about. So that part will be awesome, just getting back to the way things should be.”

Cottage Grove will have started their season at home with a matchup against North Bend on March 16 with the results to be finished after The Sentinel’s press time.