Bulldog baseball and softball are passing the torch. Both head coaches are new this year; both successful alumni of the program. Travis Black talked about his baseball team at Kiwanis Thursday. Julia Smith fell ill and so Key Club member and softball senior Alayna Johnson picked up her coach and talked about this year’s squad.
Black is taking the reins from his coach.
I took over for Coach Justin Simmons, who was my coach. And he took over for Coach Craig Winter who was also my coach. So it’s been a cool thing…I got to coach under Simmons the last two years. It’s kind of rare you get to coach with and under and help somebody that you played for as a player. Coach Winter is coming to help me out for his last ride; it’s his last year as a teacher at the high school. I asked him if he’d come along and help me out this year and he said he would.
The season is young but the Bulldogs are off to a 3-3-1 start. How do you get a tie in baseball?
It’s when a team doesn’t have lights.
Black says he has a good group coming back consisting of six seniors, five juniors, two sophomores, and about six freshman. The team is battle tested and talented.
Lot of varsity experience coming back with the seniors; a couple guys that are scheduled to play college baseball this fall. We’ve got a good group and should have a pretty good record. We got a slow start but that’s kind of high school sports and baseball coming out of winter and when it starts to warm up the kids start to play better. We’ve got a lot of good pitching this year; some guys that are going to go play college ball to pitch specifically. It should be a good season.
Alayna Johnson is one of only two seniors on the team and to this point is the only one committed to play in college. Johnson has signed on to play at St. Charles Community College where she’ll play this fall. Ashlyn Rager joins Johnson on the softball field this year after a hiatus to focus on volleyball, basketball, and track.
The Lady Bulldogs are 2-2. Even in defeat, Johnson says she was able to find a silver lining in one of the team’s two losses, one of them to perennial power Carterville.
Carterville, they have like five Division I commits on their team. Big school, good pitchers. For the first time, we scored more than 3 runs against them. We lost 11 – 5 but they also had to take their pitcher out because we got to them. So I’m pretty proud of that one.
Johnson also had nice things to say about Smith who takes over from Kaylea Stubblefield saying she’s down to earth and encouraging. The team, made up of 14 this year is a bit light on pitching, but they should improve as the season goes on.
You can catch select Bulldog Baseball and Lady Bulldog Softball games on 97.3 WRUL. The next softball broadcast is coming up Friday, March 28th at 4:30pm. Boys Baseball will be live on WRUL at 4:30pm on Monday, March 31st.
