The baseball team kicked off the season March 3, against Mills High School, winning 13-3. Fisher DeClerk captains the team, which is made up of 33 players spanning all grades. They started their season with a home game at the brand new Buddy Coleman field, after previously playing on public fields at Interstate Park.

“It’s better than anything I could have imagined,” DeClerk said. “It was a public field, people were using it all the time to take their dogs out and stuff like that. So we go from that to this field that we have now, which is all turf, you know, no bad hops or anything. So it’s amazing.”

As of April 22, the team has had a record of 14-9. Twelve of those wins were at home with only two being away games. Their most recent home game was a loss against Bryant.s

With this being freshman Sam Daniels’ first year on the team, he has already faced some challenges.

“The hardest team we faced was against Conway, the number [one] team in the state, with multiple D1 recruits. That was probably our toughest challenge,” Daniels said. 

This is only one of the many challenges the team has faced so far this year.

“The biggest challenge would be for people just to get out of their heads. They’re thinking, you know, if they don’t perform well, then they’re not going to be able to start on the baseball team and all that stuff…It’s a game nevertheless. So just go out there. Have fun,” DeClerk said.  With only seven games left in the season, the reality about reaching the state competition is starting to set in. In conference play, the team has a record of 2-9. The school hasn’t won a championship in baseball since 1922.

“I mean, the way it’s looking right now, I don’t think [we’ll win], but I’m sure, in the future, with this new talent that we’ve got. I think we can do it,” said Daniels.

The baseball team finishes their season tonight playing Cabot at the Panther Baseball/Softball Complex. First pitch is at 5 p.m., and junior varsity follows after.