Clarkrange hopes for the baseball seniors to help swing the bats more consistently this season.
Last year, Clarkrange finished the season with one win on the year and exited against Clay County in the play-in game. They scored 21 of their 36 runs within a four game homestretch that included the Buffaloes scoring 11 of those runs in a loss to Pickett County. Head Coach Greg McWhirter said he intends to get the Buffaloes’ hitting back.
“I brought on some new coaches this year to help with all that hitting.” McWhirter said. “I got a college coach that’s come in and helped us [work] on some of our hitting and everything else to try to get the bats going this year.”
Clarkrange looks to move past the one game play-in round for the first since the 2022 season. Their Opening Day occurs on March 6th in a home game against Scott County.
“I started adding a few other freshmen to start pitching a little bit.” McWhirter said. “I’m hoping we’ll have four good pitchers and then we’ll have some guys to take up some innings for us to help us out.”
McWhirter said he relied on his two senior starters to eat up most of their innings last season.
“I just want to see them improve.” McWhirter said. “I want to see them go out and improve every game and get better and learn the game of baseball.”
McWhirter said the biggest problem in the last few years has occurred in his team not understanding baseball and how the sport is played. He said he hopes to see kids from all four grades use more than athletic ability to help the Buffaloes put wins together.
“It’s time to learn how to play baseball and just fundamental baseball. That’s what we’re trying to get back to and make this team a better team.” McWhirter said.
