By Chris Parker
Plato baseball went 10-16 last spring and followed that up with a 9-10 showing during the fall campaign. The Eagles will look to climb back above .500 this season with all but one starter returning.
They will try to get back to competing for a district title behind a leadership core of seniors Elijah Mayfield (pitcher/outfielder), Levi Johnson (pitcher/first base), Kevan Monds (utility) and Wyatte Cotrel along with junior Graham Todd (pitcher/shortstop).
Mayfield and Todd will be atop the rotation for the Eagles.
“Elijah Mayfield is our ace. As a southpaw, he has a lot of life to his fastball as well as a slider to complement it. He has been developing his changeup which should add a weapon to his repertoire,” Plato head coach Brady Dean said. “Graham Todd is our power pitcher. He works and throws a heavy fastball which leads to a lot of ground balls. He will be our No. 2 in the rotation.”
Johnson and sophomore Hayden Pinkston will round out the top of the pitching rotation.
“Lane is a lot like Graham minus the heavy fastball. Lane gets his outs with his placements in the zone, making batters roll over or get jammed,” Dean said. “Hayden is going to be our fourth pitcher in our rotation. His weapon is his fastball. It has a lot of movement for a right handed pitcher, which is rather rare in my opinion.”
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Sophomore Ryan Steinbrink returns behind the plate at catcher after a good freshman season.
The infield will consist of: Levi Johnson (first base), Wyatte Cotrel (second base), Lane Johnson (third base) and Graham Todd (shortstop) with Kevan Monds and Hayden Pinkston occupying utility roles.
The outfield will feature Austin Fulmer in left, Elijah Mayfield in center and Cole Waters in right with Monds filling a utility role there as well.
Pitching will have to carry Plato while the offense looks to improve.
“Pitching will be our strength this spring. We’ve grown a lot from last spring and have matured quite a bit. We are playing the game the right way, and we have goals for the upcoming season we want to achieve and have been working hard to put us in the position to achieve those goals,” Dean said. “Areas we need to improve upon is our offensive production at the plate. We struggled as a whole this past fall. When we were hitting well, we were a very hard team to beat. One of our goals this spring is to have a better approach at the plate to manufacture more runs and have better at bats.”
Plato opens the season on Mar. 19 at Steelville.
“My overall expectations this spring coincide with the entire team,” Dean said. “We came up short last spring in districts, something that has stuck with us and we want another shot at it. We want to be in that district championship game again, and with losing only one starter there’s no reason we can’t get back there.”
