By Kary Booher (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Longtime Branson High School baseball coach Troy Nimmo sees it this way: The Pirates should be ready to take the next steps after learning from last year’s challenging season.
“Last year was a year of frustration in many ways,” Nimmo said. “While being able to compete with many of the teams on our schedule, we rarely found the opportunity to keep a late lead or find a way to put up the runs to finish a comeback. Inconsistency plagued us throughout the season. That, with some injury issues, forced us to have some younger kids thrown into varsity action early.”
A year ago, Branson finished 6-19 and graduated its only All-Central Ozark Conference selection. But several returnees and new varsity players could make this year’s 25-man roster more competitive.
Start with the pitching staff.
It includes left-handed seniors Wyatt Ridinger (2-0, 1.54 earned run average), Braden Pannell (1-3, 2.15) and Ryan Leonard (0-2, 1.75) along with junior Jackson Miller and sophomores Carter Jenkins, Kale Lankton and James Ryan Houston. Pannell delivered some strong starts, showing good command, while Leonard is likely to see more innings after working out of the bullpen.
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“Ridinger had a great junior year for us and we hope for him to continue to give us some strong starts throughout the spring,” Nimmo said. “We are hopeful that we will continue to develop some guys to go along with the three or four who have seen varsity time.
A catching possibility is Heath Cole, a sophomore. The team graduated Sam Lemley.
Meanwhile, the projected lineup could see outfielder Chance Mobley, Jenkins at third base, sophomore Lance Strahan at shortstop with juniors Zach Kearney-Doyle, Miller or Lankton manning first base. Sophomore Ridge Schroeder (second base), senior Ty Werling (infield), junior outfielder Dom Kimberlin and freshman outfielder Lane Werling also are in the mix.
“Mobley started for us last year in our outfield. He will take over as our daily center fielder,” Nimmo said. “We hope that he continues to improve at the plate and helps to not only drive in runs, but jump start us with his speed on the bases.”
But …
“With so many new faces competing for opportunities this year, we hope that the competition that practice brings will cause some of our guys to rise to the occasion,” Nimmo said. “We hope to play the game intelligently, limit walks and errors, and be able to manufacture runs when the opportunity arises.”
A couple of sophomores won’t be too green.
“Jenkins and Lance Strahan saw a great deal of time in our lineup last year,” Nimmo said. “Hopefully, they will continue to grow as players and have success this year.”
In many ways, this may be a season where Branson shows better late in the spring as the Pirates navigate through the Central Ozarks Conference.
“We take great pride in being able to play in a conference as powerful and as rich in tradition as the Central Ozark Conference is,” Nimmo said. “However, this means that we can never take a game off or an opponent for granted. Our hope is to build a base of small successes throughout the year and to be playing at our best and be highly competitive by the time district play begins.”
