The baseball team has been focusing on correcting mistakes to improve their current record of 4-12. Head coach Jason Ollison, assistant coach Derald Henderson, junior first baseman Austin Gardner and junior catcher Hunter Bagley have set goals to improve the rest of the season with consistency, defense and thriving under pressure.

  “As always, our goals for the rest of the season are to continue to improve.  We set a goal at the beginning of the season of winning the district and that is still a viable goal.  Hopefully we will continue to improve and meet that goal,” Ollison said.

 Coaches are striving to keep that goal in their sights.

  “We are inconsistent, because we played well for a few games and regress for a few games. We could play better defensively, we would like pitchers to throw more strikes and continue to keep batters off balance. We have the talent, but we have not put all components of the game together for a seven-inning game,” Henderson said.

 Players are not letting the record get them down, but keep looking toward their season goals.

  “My goals are to try to get ready for next season and the obstacles that we will be facing at the beginning of next year,” Gardner said.

  “My personal goals for the remaining half of the season was to complete one of my goals of throwing out twelve on base runners this year, and as a team to hopefully get at least ten total wins,” Bagley said.

  The team has been focusing on their record of 3-12 with wins against Versailles, Cole Camp, Knob Noster and Rose Bud, and losses to Hallsville, Skyline, Southern Boone, Flippin, Arkansas, El Dorado Springs, Holden, Buffalo, Sacred Heart, Clinton, Arkansas, and Lebanon, and has been focusing on the challenges faced during each of the games that were lost.

  “Defense has been our major flaw to this point this season.  Our hitters have been doing really well and our pitchers, for the most part, have done their jobs,” Ollison said. “We have to get better on defense.”

 Henderson said mental preparation is key.

  “Usually, we will compete in games until the big inning occurs. We can sustain some pressure but their is usually a three plus run inning which puts us in a hole,” Henderson said. “We need to work on mentally preparing ourselves and focus solely on our job and doing it too the best of our ability.”

  Players look back at mistakes that were made during past games to make changes that are needed.

  “In the games that were lost, lack of energy and a lot of errors killed us,” junior left fielder Garrett Smith said.

  “The challenges for the games that we lost was purely making too many errors. Mistakes happen, and it’s okay. Sometimes some players just have their heads in the gutters and make too many errors, but our team is usually good at picking each other up and encouraging one another to do better,” Bagley said.
V