By James Howey
The baseball team has started the season with an 8-2 record and look to continue that success with the squad heading into conference play with big expectations for the season.
“We have the bar set high like we have each and every year,” Baseball coach Kent Shelley said. “We expect to compete for the conference championship and hopefully get ourselves in an opportunity to advance to the region six championship in Wichita.”
However, this year the Cavaliers face inexperience as 23 freshmen are on the team.
“We have a lot of freshmen but we have a good group of sophomores,” sophomore pitcher Austin Schnurbusch said. “That will pull us all together and keep us a family and win some ball games.”
“We’re excited with our potential,” Coach Shelley said. “It all revolves around gaining the experience and how quickly we can grow up.”
The Cavs offensive skills were on full display the first 10 games of the season. The squad scored over seven runs per game so far through the season.
“I think we swing it very well from top to bottom,” Coach Shelley said. “Just a little mix of everything we got very good team speed and all those areas are very solid, very balanced.”
Pitching is another strength of the team with Schnurbusch leading the way with a 1.93 ERA through two games pitched.
“We really like our front line pitching,” Coach Shelley said. “I think we got depth on our mound that maybe we haven’t had quite as much in years past.”
Both coach and player accept nothing but hard work and success from the Cavaliers throughout the season.
“Just busting it on the field at practice and just doing everything at hundred percent and just keeping everyone accountable for everything,” Schnurbusch said.
“Just continued hard work and getting better each and every day,” Coach Shelley said. “We expect all that to happen.”
Contact James Howey, sports editor, at jhowey@jccc.edu.