With still an extremely youthful lineup this season, the Kingston Redskin baseball team hopes that young talent can translate into another solid playoff push.
The Redskins welcome back just one senior from a 19-12 finish that ended in the Class 3A regional finals, but five sophomores return that gained valuable experience a year ago in their high school debuts.
Kingston opened the diamond season earlier this week at Tishomingo and will have its first home action Friday when Roff visits for a non-district contest.
“We are going to be really young again,” said longtime head coach Darron Henson. “We will start seven underclassmen. Several of the sophomores were thrust into action a year ago and performedwellattimes.They will need to be ready to fill even bigger roles. Hopefully we can continue to get better each day during the season and surprise some people come playoff time.”
One constant in the lineup will be the return of senior catcher Rhett Coble, who provides a steady presence behind the plate as well as hitting .404 a year ago with three home runs, 14 batted in and 22 runs scored.
Junior Brady Greene will be a key contributor as well both at the plate and on the mound. He batted .208 but had a solid .378 on-base percentage last season with 15 RBI and 13 runs scored. Greene should be an even bigger factor on the mound after logging the second most innings of any returnee with 23 1/3 in 2023.
Sophomore Hayden Seeney is expected to be the key arm in the pitching staff wherehetossed452/3frames in 14 appearances a year ago, including seven starts.
Brock Rumer is another sophomore that will be counted on heavily on the mound and add to his 19 1/3 innings last season.
At the plate, sophomore Reid Patterson posted strong numbers in his first varsity season, notching a .360 average while Ewan Weaver hit at a .345 clip. Both should be major cogs in the Redskin offensive arsenal during the course of the season.
“Ireallythinkpitchingand defense should be our strong suits,” Henson commented. “We only graduated one senior on the infield so I think our defense will be solid. We don’t have any dominant arms on the mound but guys that can throw strikes and make people put the ball in play. Hopefully we can scratch across some runs when we get the opportunity.
“We have to be able to play small ball when we face big arms. We’re going to need to be able to bunt and hit and run as well as take advantage of our opportunities on the base paths.”
The Redskins’ Class 3A district schedule will be similar with a veteran Valliant squad expected to be near the top of the pack. The addition of perennial power Silo to the league mix will make things interesting as well, but Henson is confident his young squad will be right there vying for positioning near the top part of the league standings.