With spring sports in full swing, the baseball team has been eyeing the chance at a state championship. For most players, a state championship is the main goal that has been set since the season first started. The record currently stands at 13-2 with wins against Van Horn, Buffalo, Cole Camp, El Dorado Springs, Hallsville, Lakeland, Eldon, Skyline, Blair Oaks, Versailles,0 along with a first place finish in the Ozark Baseball Classic. The team is currently ranked ninth in the state according to the Missouri High School Baseball Coaches Association.

Head coach John Eierman, freshman Ryan Sprouse, sophomore Hunter Bagley, and senior Jeremy Eierman have all seen the team make progress through many practices and games.

“We are slowly but surely making progress,” Coach Eierman said. “Sometimes we take a big step backwards but overall we are working hard and learning from our mistakes.”

“Our team is getting better than we started,” Sprouse said. “We have connected and will keep growing as a team on the road to state.”

“I think that the team has progressed pretty well, and overall steadily,” Bagley said. “Everyone gets their cuts in everyday and is working hard at what they do in the positions.”

“The team has progressed very well,” Eierman said. “Everyday we’re getting better.”

The boys won first place at the Ozark Baseball Classic in Harrison, Arkansas for the second year in a row, and after have been working harder towards future wins. Eierman, and seniors Bailey Jelinek and Joey Cooner have been working hard to meet their goal.

“We are trying to eliminate the mistakes, especially the mental mistakes. We need to throw more strikes, make the routine plays in the field, and get our best swings off every at bat,” Coach Eierman said. “If we can accomplishment that, good things will happen.”

“Winning felt pretty good because I was expecting to win,” Jelinek said. “But now I’m continuing to work on my hitting and pitching.”

“Winning felt really good since we won the tournament last year too,” Cooner said. “So now we are just coming to practice with a good attitude every day getting better.”

After losses against Southern Boone and Holden, the team has been evaluating their mistakes, and working on fixing them, so the road to state becomes more clear. Eierman, Sprouse, Bagley, and senior Alex Letcher all are working hard to fix mistakes.

“The games we lost, we should have won. We were better than both of those teams,” Eierman said. “Errors killed us.”

“Our challenges on our losses were errors,” Sprouse said. “We weren’t focused enough and ready for every pitch.”

“The main thing that happens in the games that we lose is either focus, or energy levels which contribute to the errors that lose us the game,”Bagley said.

“The games we lost there were many errors in which gave the other team more chances to score which helped them out and brought us down,” Letcher said.

The team has many strengths keeping them afloat, and are all working on improving and growing as a team. Improvements will guide them to defeat teams in their upcoming games, and achieve their goal of a state championship title.