Wildcats Hoping To Reach Best Baseball As District Tourney Nears

Wildcats Win Back-To-Back Games Over Trinity

Senior Gavin Rose throws a pitch against Trinity on May 11, 2021.

Darren Doyle, story and photos:
The Wildcats notched their second win over Trinity last night in a 6-2 victory in back-to-back games against the Raiders. Edmonson County won easily the night before in a 19-7 match.

While their 9-12 record may not show it best, Head Coach Bo West says he believes that his team is coming into stride as the district tournament draws near.

"We're doing a lot of things now that we couldn't do at the first of the year," hes said. "Our baseball IQ has really gotten higher, getting back to the groove of baseball, and we've really playing sharp lately--especially our defense. That's what hurt us early in the year. Us coaches have been feeling around for defense because we hadn't seen a lot of kids at different positions. But now, we're really keen on defense because defense is  huge, especially when you're not getting 15 to 18 strikeouts per game, you gotta play D."

Junior third baseman Gavin Minyard throws out a player at first base.

Senior Chaz Wilson makes contact with a pitch against Trinity.

Senior Gavin Rose earned the win with 6 innings pitched, giving up 2 runs on 7 hits with no earned runs. He struck out 4 while walking no one. Seventh grader Hunter Wilson pitched one perfect inning in relief, striking out 2.

Sophomore Daren Alexander led the Wildcats on the offense, going 2-4 with an RBI and a run scored. Rose also went 1-3 with an RBI as did Wilson. Clay Walden went 1-3 and Gavin Minyard went 1-4 with a double. The Wildcats had a total of 6 hits against Trinity along with 6 stolen bases.

"Gavin did really well tonight and we hoped he could finish out, but we're not out here trying to throw 100 pitches a game to kill arms, and Trinity's pitcher (Landon Huff) did well tonight, too. He's got 3 different pitches which is hard to find in high school. But going back-to-back is big for us because we've been working on not so much of up-and-down, or Jekyll and Hyde baseball, but finding a consistent balance because baseball is everyday. Not worrying about what happened last night, but focusing on doing the right things one game at a time and I think we did that tonight. I think we're gradually getting there."

Seventh grader Hunter Wilson fires a pitch in relief against Trinity.

Senior Dylan Lindsey puts down a sac bunt against Trinity.

Coach West said that the bounce back from COVID was a difficult one and with last year's season being cancelled, it took a while to get back into baseball shape, but the team is still focused on that happening at the right time.

"Having a year off and with our basketball kids coming in later, we're just now getting into season form, and that's the case with most teams," he said. "We had to platoon our pitching early in the year to protect arms. We've had limited practices over the past couple of years and our games have been like practices for us. It's been very difficult dealing with COVID and we have a lot of young guys that hadn't seen much varsity experience. Our focus now is to keep building towards the district tournament. We're not focusing so much on our record or scores, we're worried about getting better every game. We're focusing on district teams and getting to the place where our mentality is winning that one game, then doing it again the next night."

The Wildcats have 10 games left on the regular season before the District 12 Tournament begins in Butler County. Their senior night is scheduled for next week.