After graduating 10 seniors from a year ago, the Carthage Tigers baseball program is tasked with reloading talent on the fly in order to compete for a conference and district title in the upcoming 2023 season.
“We graduated 10 seniors last year so there will be a lot of inexperience with this group,” Carthage coach Luke Bordewick said to SoMo Sports. “I think our young players are excited to contribute at the varsity level and have a great passion and work ethic for baseball. We have seen a lot of progress so far in our early practices and getting those inexperienced players live game reps is the most important. I think we will have a very competitive season like we have for the past couple of years. Last year, we had a ton of close games and a ton of extra-inning marathons. We just need to grow and learn how to close those games out.”
Despite the large turnover on the varsity roster, the excitement level and anticipation for the upcoming season is quite high for Carthage thanks to the returning group as well as the talent level of the newcomers.
The Tigers welcome back senior catcher Clay Kinder and senior IF Drew Musche as well as junior P/IFs Bradyn Tate and Ty Perry. Joining the four returners are senior P/OF Atlas Horine, junior OF Austin Mitchell, junior P Brodie Cole, junior IF Mason Adams, sophomore OF Langston Morgan, sophomore P/IF Brady Carlton and sophomore P/IF Nolan Brown.
“I believe we are very excited,” Bordewick added. “So far this spring, we have been working hard in practice and developing as a team. We have a very competitive schedule and will play a lot of great teams. We are ready to get going.”
The Tigers will be relying on their team speed as well as the effort on the defensive end of the diamond to lead the way in the upcoming season. In fact, quality play on defense will be the best way to ease the inexperience pitchers into the varsity game.
“I believe we can put together a great defensive unit behind our pitchers,” Bordewick said. “We need more game reps to get some of our young infielders up to speed, but as the season progresses, we should be a good defensive team. I also believe we can put a lot of pressure on opposing defenses with our speed in our lineup.”
With inexperience comes areas of focus that will need to see improvement as the season progresses. For Carthage, those areas will be at the plate and on the mound.
“The areas we need to improve upon are our pitching and hitting,” Bordewick said. “We have some quality arms and bats we can put out there, but they are very inexperienced at the varsity level. Getting them some innings and at-bats at a high level is going to be the only way to improve upon that.
Carthage opens the season with a doubleheader against East Carter and Portageville in Ellsinore, Missouri, on Saturday.
OF NOTE: The Tigers open at home against Monett on March 21. Carthage will be playing it’s home games at Joe Becker Stadium and Wendell Redden Stadium this season.
