High School Baseball Team Previews 2018

MADISON- The 2018 high school baseball season is underway and the local teams are comprised of one coach who enters their third season as head coach, two others for their second year and one who is at the top position for his first season.

BOB JONES- Entering his third season as head coach of Bob Jones, Jared Smith is what you would call the dean of the local coaches. With four seniors returning from last year’s 19-24 season, Smith knows losing a dozen players off last year’s team can cause some apprehension, but his roster of talent includes five players who have had heavy recruitment from colleges, and only one of them is a senior, Brendan Bickleman (P/OF). The remainder of the hot prospects are sophomores- Dylan Ray (P/3B), Caden Rose (SS/P), Mitch Daly (INF) and Cam Hill (1B/P).

“At our Class 7A level, it is unusual to have to rely on youth, but I think this group of young players is hungry and with the senior leadership of our four seniors, we’ll go all go in the same direction,” said Smith.

Another leader on this team is junior John Michael Riley who pitches and catches for the Patriots and is looking forward to being a leader in his own right. He said, “If I can just lead this team we should be good. Everyone on this team plays hard and keeps their heads up and all of them have good character.”

As for bearing the weight on their shoulders, there’s Kennesaw State signee Bickleman. “I have prepared myself for this. I want to show the other players to stay positive and not get mentally down,” said Bickleman.

JAMES CLEMENS- Season number two for Cory Hamrick as head coach of the James Clemens Jets should be exciting with five returning starters off last year’s squad that finished 19-19. This year’s team has been called a blue collar type team.

“We should be ahead of most other teams on the mound as we have four guys bidding for the No. 1 spot on our pitching staff as they are all high-level pitchers,” said Hamrick. “When you have four in the mix that’s great for one team.”

The Jets lost 14 seniors off last year’s team, but have replacements waiting to make their own mark in Class 7A Area 8. Tommy Crider (C), a Belmont signee, Dylan Kridner (2B/SS) and Michael Bigelow (INF) are three seniors who know what it takes to be winners and look for nothing but success in 2018.

“Absolutely, this is the year and we sort of established that last year, but I think we’ll reap the awards of that hard work this season,” said Bigelow, who will decide on which Military Academy he wants to attend after the baseball season is complete. “We’ve seen a lot of hard work after the cultural change when Coach Hamrick became our head coach.”

“Last year we had flashes of greatness, but we had lows that hurt us,” said Kridner. “This year, we have more discipline and more solidification with the coaching staff and our team, which will help us be more consistent the entire season and hopefully contend for a state title.”

“This team will do battle with anyone, scrap and do everything they have to do to win,” said Crider. “This year we have guys who are hard workers. We’re sort of a blue collar type team.”

SPARKMAN- Replacement is the word at Sparkman as the squad has to replace 10 players off last year’s team who signed college scholarships. Plus, Jason Brewer takes over as head coach after three seasons as an assistant.

“We lost 75-percent of our innings on the mound off last year’s team so we have sort of open competition all over the field and addressed that all the way back to fall workouts as every days is an evaluation,” said Brewer. “In our minds we’re just re-tooling as we have athletes at every position, but many of those just haven’t had the chance to play a lot due to the fact we’ve had some great classes of players come through here.”

Leading the 2018 group of Senators this spring is Josiah John (P), a Mississippi College commit and Garrett Bodine (CF), a UAH signee and three-year starter. Add Devin Kimbrough (SS) and Nathan Eurton (P/OF) and you have a list of seniors that have taken ownership of the team. The Senators also have depth at every position that feature all classes of student-athletes.

“We’re gonna have to do things differently as we don’t have the power at the plate through the lineup we’ve had the last three years,” said Bodine. “That’s fine as there are many different ways to win games as I’m not worried about it. I’m ready for the challenge.”

Sparkman has had a legacy of great success the past decade and this year’s squad wants to continue that success rate, but in a different way. “We’d like to dominate through the season and bring up the younger players,” said John. “I think we’re going to have a lot of good arms on the mound and we’ll have to develop to become pitchers and throw strikes.”

MADISON ACADEMY- The Mustangs were state runner-up with a 29-15 record one year ago, but graduation has depleted this team and will have just two returning starters. Only three seniors are listed on the 2018 roster and include Tyler Littlejohn (INF), Nathan Buchanan (OF/P) and Carson Hirschler (C/P).

Madison Academy will need their young players get used to the speed of the game early in the season as the season schedule is tough early in the campaign in an effort to prepare the squad for Class 4A play down the stretch.

“We’ll have to adapt to the loss of eight seniors and seven starters off last year’s squad and mix up our offense and defense to figure out what works,” said Littlejohn.

“A lot of the teams we play know we lost many from last year and that will cause us to come in fighting and be a scrappy team to be able to win,” said Buchanan.

“We need to be unselfish and have young players come in and play positions they’re not necessarily used to playing,” added Hirschler. “We’ll go out there on the field and play our hardest and do what we need to do to win and make our way back to the playoffs.”