Experience, deep pitching staff for Mustangs

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The Lynchburg-Clay baseball team will bring loads of experience to the diamond this spring as they return eight starters from last year’s team.

Last year’s Mustangs team went 13-10 overall on the year and 9-4 in the Southern Hills Athletic Conference. They ended up losing in the sectional finals to Waverly 11-1. From that team, the Mustangs lost four seniors in Jordan Wilt, Dakota Baker, Noah Buck and Quinton Lewis.

Even though the Mustangs bring back a lot of experience, due to the success of the basketball season, the team has yet to have a complete practice.

“We are returning eight starters this year,” said Head Coach Garyn Waits. “Wes Smith, Cory Snider, Morgan Ryan, Andrew Reuss, Kendall Vilvens, Christian Inman, Devin Pierson and Alec Elam will all be back this year so we did not lose much there at all. Due to the basketball season being such a success, we’re just now getting some of these guys back, so we haven’t had a practice with everyone yet. I think overall we should be very solid defensively. That is where a bulk of our inside work has been spent. Our pitching should be very deep. We’ve been throwing seven to eight guys on a daily basis and I’d put our top three guys up against anyone. Hitting is the big question coming into out first game with McClain on Saturday. Up to this point we’ve only seen the inside of the cage.”

New for the Mustangs will be freshmen Drew Pitzer and Damin Pierson, both who are pitchers. Bricen Hess and Forrest Elam will return as junior letterman and Blake Croy and Jacob Magie are returning for the sophomore class.

“We had all of our losses/issues is conference to the small school division,” said Waits about the SHAC. “I think Fayetteville has to be the favorite with North Adams being solid again. Whiteoak was really young last year so I look for them to make strides with a year under their belts. Leesburg has another year under their belts this year as well and knocked us off early last year so they could be a team to watch as well. We have a solid non conference schedule to go with our league slate this year. We’re hoping that the early tests will serve us well come tournament time. Our facility is top notch and I feel like it gets the guys excited and ready to play.

“I’d also like to add that we have four guys that will be moving on in the fall to play college ball. Cory Snider and Wes Smith will both be heading off to Earlham, Morgan Ryan will be playing at Bluffton and Kendall Vilvens will be playing at Wilmington.”

The Lynchburg-Clay Mustangs will kick off their regular season this Saturday on the road in Greenfield when they take on the Tigers in a double header starting at 11 a.m.

Reach Robert Stegbauer at 937-393-3456 ext. 1679 or on Twitter @RStegbauer.

The 2016 Lynchburg-Clay Mustangs baseball team
http://aimmedianetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2016/03/web1_LCBase.jpgThe 2016 Lynchburg-Clay Mustangs baseball team

By Robert Stegbauer

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