(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photo by Henk Seppen)
 Eugene Henson new Head Coach of Storks
Nederlands
 THE HAGUE (Neth.) -
Eugene Henson will be the Head Coach of the big league-team of Silicon Storks next season, the club confirmed on Saturday (September 14).
Henson is currently the Head Coach of Wassenaar, which plays in the Top-8 Pool of the second highest league ('Overgangsklasse') and is in sixth place.
He will finish the season with Wassenaar, which ends on Sunday, September 22.
Henson also led Wassenaar last year when the team finished in seventh place.
...As Head Coach of ADO Lakers in 2014,...
...Eugene Henson has a talk with...
...Umpire Stenar van Groningen Schinkel...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
At Storks, Henson succeeds Youri Visser, who stepped down, as he wants to spent more time with his family and also because of the combination with his regular job.
Visser took over the coaching of Storks in July last year, replacing Aldric Dunlop.
In the remainder of the season, Storks was 1-11 and then was 1-8 in the following Relegation Pool.
As the team finished in last place, Storks had to play a best-of-five Promotion/Relegation Series against Kinheim, the champion of the 'Overgangsklasse'.
Storks won the Series, 3-1, to stay in the big league.
This season was another tough one for Storks, which was 7-35 in the regular season.
In the following Play-Downs, Storks forced a fifth game in the Series against Quick Amersfoort, but lost the best-of-five, 3-2.
With that, it faced DSS, which had been swept 3-0 in its Series against Twins Oosterhout.
By winning the Play-Downs, Quick and Twins secured their spot in next years big league.
In the Final Series of the Play-Downs against DSS, Storks was more successful, as it won the best-of-five, 4-1, to prolong its stay in the highest league.
DSS now will meet the winner of the 'Overgangsklasse' in a best-of-five that opens on September 28.
By becoming the new Head Coach of Storks, Eugene Henson will make his comeback in the highest league next season.
The last time he coached in the big league was in 2015 when he led The Hawks.
In July of that season, Henson and The Hawks separated when the team was 5-31.
In 2014, Henson led ADO Lakers.
Before leading that team, he coached youth baseball-teams at Tsunami Baseball Academy.
In his season at ADO Lakers, the team was 9-32 with one tie to finish in seventh place.
Thereafter, the team was 2-7 in the Play-Downs, but stayed in the big league.
Initially, Henson was to be the Head Coach of ADO Lakers again in 2015.
However, in February of that year, the club withdraw its team from the big league due to its financial situation.
A month later, the club was discontinued during a special club-council at its home site in The Hague.
With that, the long history of ADO, founded in 1949, unfortunately ended.
The club merged with Losdun Lakers after the 2011 season to become ADO Lakers.
After ADO Lakers had withdraw its team, Henson initially became the Assistant Coach of Rik Ruts at The Hawks for the 2015 season.
However, Ruts stepped down a month before the start of the season due to working commitments and Henson took over as Head Coach.
Before turning his attention to coaching, the 48-year old Curaçao-born Henson played 20 seasons (660 games) in the Dutch big league as an infielder and sometimes catcher.
As a player, Henson was known for his intense and passionate playing.
Before coming to the Netherlands, Henson played for some seasons in the Curaçao Baseball League.
Henson made his debut in the Dutch big league 1991 at age 20 playing for Sparta in Rotterdam.
The next year, he played one season professionally in the organization of Atlanta Braves, playing in the Dominican Summer League at the Rookie League-level.
However, he then returned to the Netherlands and went on to play for ADO (1993-1994), Twins Oosterhout (1995), Hoofddorp Pioniers (1996-1997), again ADO (1998-2001), HCAW (2002-2007) and Sparta-Feyenoord (2008-2009).
He initially retired after the 2009 season at age 38, but during the 2010-2011 seasons, he made a few regular season-appearances again for ADO.
With Hoofddorp Pioniers, Henson won the Dutch Championship-title in 1997.
Eugene Henson also had started a career in men softball and played for the successful team of Alphians in 1995-1998, winning the Dutch championship each year.
In these years, he combined softball with playing baseball.
As Henson remained on the so-called memberlist of ADO, he was added to the active roster of ADO Lakers when it had to play in the Play-Downs after the 2013 season.
Henson played in four games for ADO Lakers, which won one of them.
However, it was then discovered that Henson was not eligible to play for the team, as he was listed as a so-called 'non-playing member'.
Due to this administrative omission, ADO Lakers got eight points subtracted, meaning it finished in last place, while the game that was won was declared invalid.
Therefore, the team had to play in the Promotion/Relegation Play-Offs against Twins, the champion of the 'Overgangsklasse'.
This time, Henson was listed as an active player and eligible to participate, which he did in two games.
ADO Lakers won the best-of-five 3-2, meaning the team secured its spot in the big league for the 2014 season.
That year, Henson made his coaching-debut at the big league-level.
(September 16)
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