By Brock Sisney (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
CASSVILLE — There are many changes for the Cassville baseball program entering the 2021 season.
Ron Hudson took over the head coach position last summer, after being assistant for the previous four seasons under former head man Brandon Cobb. Nathan Jones and Chris Seymour are new assistants — with Jones the former head coach at Gainesville.
Senior pitcher and first baseman Zac Acheson brings with him all the starting experience at the varsity level, since last year’s Cassville team would have been senior-dominated had COVID not eliminated all spring sports competition across the state.
“This group really needed to play last season,” Hudson said. “Our team last year was very senior-oriented and the majority of the guys that we will count on this year would’ve played a whole lot of JV baseball. That would’ve been very valuable for them. As it is, the last baseball they played at the high school level was freshman baseball. So they are going from freshman ball to a year off and now will be relied on heavily at the varsity level. This past summer and during the offseason, we have been working hard on the fundamentals.”
Fundamentals will arguably be stressed more than ever before during the ’21 season.
“Once spring practices start, we will need to scrimmage and see the guys in game-like situations,” Hudson said, “But our focus will be on throwing strikes, catching the ball, throwing it, and then catching it again. We are very fortunate that we have great support from our school district and have an indoor batting cage. That has allowed Coach Jones to work with guys on their hitting. He is an excellent coach, which can be seen by his success at Gainesville the last couple of years.”
CLICK HERE FOR ALL OF THE SPRING SPORTS PREVIEWS
Cassville returns to the field for the first live competition since 2019 with the Clever Jamboree on Mar. 13 and the Wildcats open their season six days later on the road against Buffalo, their first game since a 3-1 loss to Seneca in the 2019 Class 4 district tournament. If the Wildcats play on Mar. 19, it will mark 678 days between games.
“We are excited just thinking about Day 1 of practice,” Hudson said, “So I will probably have to settle the guys down a little bit when it comes time for the jamboree.”
Acheson recently signed with North Arkansas College, based in Harrison, and during his sophomore campaign, he posted a 3.04 ERA with 51 innings pitched and eight starts on the mound and a .340 batting average with 18 RBI at the plate. Acheson earned all-Big 8 Conference West second team honors at pitcher and the Wildcats planned to rely on Acheson as their No. 1 pitcher last season.
Sophomore pitcher and middle infielder Isaac Hadlow had been slated to start last season.
“We will be very inexperienced,” Hudson said. “We have maybe three guys that have actually played in a varsity game and some of them have never even played in a JV game, so there will be a very large learning curve. We are fortunate to have a couple of guys in Acheson and Hadlow who play a lot of summer baseball and against really good competition, so that will help. Additionally, Acheson has been a starting pitcher at Cassville since his freshman year, so we will rely heavily on his leadership.”
Senior pitcher, infielder and designated hitter Lane Mitchell and junior catcher and infielder Landon White would have been in the mix last season.
Returning players are rounded out by junior catcher, infielder and pitcher Cutter Hicks, junior pitcher and infielder Corey Thomas, junior outfielder Ethan Fuchs, junior pitcher and outfielder Devin Bailey, junior utility Timothy Hudson, junior infielder and outfielder Eli Leach, and junior infielder and outfielder Davin Roscom. Sophomore pitchers Tyler Burnette and Keaton Shellenberger are expected to get their first taste of high school baseball.
Hudson said that Cassville’s probable starting lineup (listed in their batting order) will be Fuchs in center, Hicks at third, Acheson pitcher, White catcher, Hadlow shortstop, Hudson in right, Mitchell at first, Leach in left, and Thomas at second.
Bailey, Mitchell, Thomas, White, Burnette, and Shellenberger are the Wildcats’ other arms.
“When Coach Cobb left, school was already out for the year and I got hired after that,” Hudson said, “So with COVID and with the timing of my hiring, we did not play any summer games. However, we did have about 15 workouts where we worked on baseball fundamentals and also scrimmaged a few times since many of them hadn’t played in a baseball game in over a year.
“We are focused on playing good, fundamental baseball. We have some pretty good athletes and hopefully we can put some pressure on defenses when we are at bat. For us to be successful we have to stay healthy, throw strikes, make plays, and put the baseball in play. We can’t afford to walk a bunch of guys and make a bunch of errors.”
Some things never change.
