By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
There weren’t many baseball teams that scored as often as Nevada did last spring.
The Tigers averaged 10 runs per game and scored 15 or more in eight contests while compiling a 17-7 record, the team’s third winning mark in four seasons. Nevada finished second in the Big 8 West and second in Class 4 District 12 play.
“It was a nice mix of players last year,” head coach Danny Penn said. “I had a few freshmen contributing and some sophomores, juniors and seniors. Just a nice mix of guys who worked hard with a common goal of being a successful baseball team and had a good year.”
This spring’s team will be led by a pair of decorated seniors in Cade Beshore and Case Sanderson. Beshore was a second team all-state catcher who also earned second-team honors in the Big 8 and first team all-district honors. He collected 11 doubles and 14 extra-base hits with 24 RBI’s and 18 runs while batting .494 with an OPS of 1.280. Sanderson was a first team all-state outfielder, a first team all-conference outfielder and pitcher and also earned first team all-district honors. He had 14 doubles, 18 extra-base hits, 21 RBI’s, 33 runs and led the team with 23 walks while batting .516 with an OPS of 1.538.
Beshore has signed with Evangel, and Sanderson has signed with Nebraska.
“We feel really good about our leadership,” Penn said. “Case and Cade are two guys who’ve played a lot of baseball and at a high level and they’re guys who are going to set a high standard for us and make sure their teammates are playing up to the level of expectation. We’ve got a lot of guys who are hungry to be on the field.”
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Sanderson will probably spend most of his time at first base when he’s not pitching this season, and Beshore returns behind the plate.
The team’s other big returner is junior Drake Ketterman, a first team Big 8 utility player who was also first-team all-district. He was a .388 hitter (1.022 OPS) who collected 14 doubles and four triples to go along with 21 RBI’s and 33 runs. He’s got the inside track to earn the starting shortstop spot.
After that, the Tigers return several players with varsity experience, but they’ll be replacing five seniors who graduated last season.
Sophomore Caden Klumpp will likely be the team’s backup catcher when Beshore is pitching and could earn the starting job at third. He batted .322 with six extra-base hits in 21 games last year and had earned a starting role by the end of the season, spending time at third and catcher.
Others in the mix on the infield are Jacob Murray and Kennedy D’Elia at third, Barrett Nadurata, Graham Walker, Kasen Ast and Gabe Smith in the middle, and D’Elia, Blake Woods and Hunter Seaver at first.
Brice Budd appears set to start in center field after scoring 14 runs in 15 games last season, Riddick Shook could start in left and right field remains a question mark with guys like Murray, Walker, Smith and Kasen Ast and Kellan Ast in the mix to play there.
Sanderson will lead the team’s rotation after pitching 41.1 innings last season with a 5-2 record, 1.02 ERA and 72 strikeouts. The rest of the staff will include Beshore (2.80 ERA, 21 K’s in 15 IP), Shook, D’Elia, Smith, Woods and Walker.
“Hopefully we have a couple guys surprise us,” Penn said. “We’ve got a lot of arms but not a ton with experience.”
“I feel like we’re very athletic which I hope translates to being able to cover a lot of ground on the field,” he said. “I feel good about our outfield defense. We’ve got a lot of guys who’ve played a lot of baseball, and a lot who played shortstop on their youth teams and obviously we can only have one shortstop at a time so we’re trying to figure out who best fills those other spots.
“We talked to them about the importance of versatility and playing multiple positions and the fact that it gives us as coaches more opportunities to play you on the field. I feel good about the top half of our lineup and then it’s just a matter of finding the guys to fill the bottom three or four spots and hopefully make our lineup long and deep.”
Nevada heads to Bolivar on March 10 for a jamboree that includes Buffalo, and the Tigers open the regular season March 20-25 in the Clever tournament. Nevada will play in the Sedalia Smith-Cotton tournament in early April, which replaces the Bill O’Dell Classic in Carthage on the schedule.
