By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
The Carl Junction baseball team started the 2019 season 5-4 and finished it 5-3.
It was those 11 games in the middle that proved a problem for the Bulldogs, who lost eight in a row in April and finished with an 11-17 record. Six of those losses were by two runs or fewer.
“Every year you know you’ve got to play extremely good baseball in the COC,” head coach Jake Stevenson said. “There were some tough conference losses in there.”
Entering his third year as head coach of the Bulldogs, Stevenson wants his team to compete better in the Central Ozark Conference this spring and eliminate the bad stretches like it faced last year.
The good news is Carl Junction has seven returning starters and nine returning lettermen. The team’s biggest loss is Jeremiah Kennedy, who was a first-team all-conference utility player, is now playing at Missouri Southern. He went 5-4 on the mound with a 2.01 ERA and batted .362.
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“He was a very good arm, a guy who could command two different pitches for a strike in any count,” Stevenson said. “A leader, a workhorse, just a guy that wanted the ball in some big, key games and had a heck of a season. He led our team offensively and he led our team in pitching as well. Certainly a big loss for us but there’s some guys that are hungry and looking to fill some shoes this year.”
Full-time returners are senior Cooper Cook at first base (.294 average, 14 RBI’s), junior Carson Johnson on the infield and mound (.293 average, eight doubles), junior Alex Baker in the outfield and on the mound (.264 average, eight doubles), junior Drew Beyer at second base and pitcher (.265 average) and junior Noah Southern at catcher and pitcher (.260 average).
Senior Garrett Taylor also started some in center field, senior Jackson Huffman started at designated hitter, junior Dylan Eck started some on the mound and junior Cole Stewart also started some at pitcher.
In addition to those nine players, seniors Dylan Sims, Dennis Maggard and Josh Allison and juniors Keaton Johnston, Brendyn Downs, Ethan Howard and Jaxson Mackney will be fighting for varsity playing time.
Stevenson expects the team’s defense to be a strength, and the offense should be improved.
“I wouldn’t say offense is our strength; the last two years we haven’t been what we would like to be offensively but with the experience we have I think that should be a point of emphasis and an improved phase of the game for us this year,” he said.
Kennedy usually batted around second and Tyler Benefiel, another graduated senior, usually hit fourth or fifth. Pretty much every other bat returns, and Stevenson said the offense picked up during summer ball.
“Some guys finally started to look on time against velocity,” he said. “We faced guys that can just throw it in our conference so these guys are starting to get stronger, they’re getting older, they’re upper classmen. Getting a little more comfortable in the box.”
The pitching staff must replace No. 1 starter Kennedy but returns five players who pitched in varsity games last spring. Stewart had a 1.80 ERA, Southern’s was 2.33, Johnson’s was 3.33 and Baker’s was 3.99.
The main question mark in Stevenson’s mind is this: do the Bulldogs look as experienced as they are on paper?
“In the last couple years we’ve made some inexperienced mistakes in the field, mental mistakes,” he said. “Do we clean some things up and eliminate some of those? Have great attitudes and effort in practice and continue to get better on a daily basis?”
He said the returning group is a cohesive unit and the players are hungry after last season ended with a walk-off loss in the district championship, 3-2 to Monett.
“We’ve got some hungry kids who want to go back to that spot and finish where we left off and if we have that opportunity we’d like to finish that game,” he said. “That being said we don’t know our district and probably won’t until March. We could be in a new district, who knows. Certainly we’ve got some guys who are hungry and experienced. We just need to be a team that grinds out games and shows grit, toughness.”
