The South Hardin baseball team after a 1-5 start roared back to record their most wins in school history at 19-9 overall and runner-up in the NICL-West at 8-4. The Tigers went on an 11 game win streak to jump to 12-5 and won six of their final seven games before falling to West Marshall in a district quarterfinal. Head Coach Nathan Weig on what fired up the team.
“Starting pitching came around. We were a little slow to start the year. Probably had a little bit too much time off in April ramping up to the season,” says Weig. “Starting pitching definitely improved for us throwing five to seven innings every game. Our hitting overall came around. Any given night, six to seven bats put the ball in play, which was huge for us.”
The Tigers pitching staff had a team ERA of 3.07, paced by Bo Carpenter with a 0.58 ERA in 24.1 innings and Peyton Welch with 1.88 ERA and a team leading 46 strikeouts. Four different Tigers hit over .300 on the season, including Welch at .384, Garret Anderson at .367, Joshua Spindler at .362 and Preston Dolash hit .318. Anderson led the team with 17 RBIs.
Weig on next steps toward a deeper season run next season.
“Our three captains, who got voted captains this year, we’re all juniors. They did an outstanding job getting everybody to buy in. This group played for one another night in and night out, and were never down on each other. I think we’ll have that same leadership. We’ll add to it obviously in some more freshmen next year. With the leadership we have, I don’t see it being a problem of the same continuity next year, that we had this season. I think our pitching will take another step forward next year. We will have obviously some seniors that are in that role, but even those younger guys will be ready for the bigger roles. I think we’ll have more guys that step up, where we have nine guys through the lineup that are hitting the ball on any given night. That will be a big factor when you play those other schools that have that same capability.”
After graduating Dax Thompson, the Tigers are projected to return 20 players next season.
