The Jones County High baseball team will open this year’s schedule when Thomas County Central travels to Gray, Friday, 5:30 p.m.

The Greyhounds were set to play at Dublin, Monday, before this past weekend’s rain and snow postponed what was originally scheduled to be their season opener.

Taking the field this year will be a new group of ’Hounds, featuring some familiar players like catcher Tyler Roberts, shortstop Jody Jones, and outfielders Zach Blount and Terrance Gore, as well as several new faces.

Those new faces will play key roles at several positions, most notably on the pitching staff, where graduated seniors Ken Nesbitt and Wilson Taylor earned the decision in 24 of the team’s 29 games last season.

Senior Devon Pace is slated to begin the year as the team’s opening-game starter, while junior Kyle Perry and sophomore Coleman Greene round out coach Barry Veal’s projected rotation.

“We’ve got a good idea,” Veal said. “It’s just that all of these guys, even Devon, experience-wise are young. So we’re looking to see who is going to take charge and who wants to be a starter.”

Veal said that each of the three has different strengths and faces different challenges.

While Pace has the best stuff and throws the hardest, he sometimes strays from the strike zone.

While Perry has good location and a good curveball, he does not throw very hard.

While Greene also has good location and a good changeup, he also does not have great velocity.

Rounding out the pitching staff will be Roberts, who will start the season as the team’s closer and will throw no more than one to two innings per game, according to Veal.

Senior James Brown and a couple of sophomores whom the coaching staff are looking for big things from in the future, Dylan Dupree and Daniel Weeks, should also log innings.

“We’ve got some young pitchers that I think are going to be fantastic,” Veal said. “We just need them to be fantastic this year and not wait until this year or the year after.”

Catching probably every inning that he is not on the mound will be the senior Roberts, who was named the Macon Telegraph’s GHSA All Middle Georgia Baseball Player of the Year last season after batting .481 with 13 home runs and 51 runs batted in.

The top candidates to play the sparse innings that Roberts is not behind the plate are Brown and junior Kasey Soles, who filled that role last year, but has just been cleared to participate in practice due to an injury.

First base may be the most contentious position going into the start of the season, as Veal said he has a couple of options who are major offensive weapons but need to improve defensively.

Junior Chase Lundy’s bat needs to be in the lineup, according to Veal, and he has made strides defensively this past offseason.

Greene, who displayed his powerful bat by hitting a home run in the team’s scrimmage against Northside, has been transitioning from third base to first base, where he could see time when he’s not on the mound.

“Coleman is probably going to be pitching 40 or 50 percent of the time, and he has a history that after he pitches it’s a little tough for him to play the field because he gets stiff and his arm hurts,” Veal said.

“Hopefully we’ll have it worked out where both of their bats will be in the game.”

The coach also mentioned that Soles and junior John Hurd are other options at first.

Second base features another of the team’s key returners in sophomore Cody Evans, who played multiple positions last season.

“We expect a lot of big things from him,” Veal said. “He played second base and third base last year, and I think he made three errors the whole year as a freshman.”

Junior utlilityman Chaz Smith will back up Evans.

The team’s starting shortstop will be the senior Jones, an All-Middle Georgia Honorable Mention last season.

Veal expects Evans and Jones to anchor an infield that is as good defensively as the school has seen in a while.

Freshman Eric Coleman and Cody Lanford will by vying to back up Jones and eventually take over for him next season.

At third base, Smith will begin the season as the starter. Veal said he has the defensive skills to play any position in the infield, including catcher, while also being a tough out from the left side of the plate.

In the outfield, right and center will be occupied by juniors Blount and Gore, respectively.

Gore, the team’s leadoff hitter, was an All-Middle Georgia First Team selection for batting .376, stealing 38 bases, and scoring 42 runs.

Left field is still up for grabs, with senior Patrick Reeves likely starting the season there as a polished defensive player.

“We’re waiting to see if he’s going to take charge offensively,” Veal said.

Lanford and junior Tyler Connell are other options at that position.

Veal said that this mix of players in the field should translate to a potent attack at the plate, as well.

“I’ll be disappointed if we don’t score a lot of runs,” Veal said. “Even though we lost some good hitters last year, we got some hitters back.”

The team also features a better mix of righties and lefties than the team has seen in years past.

Veal started three left-handers, Lundy, Reeves, and Smith, in the scrimmage against Northside two weeks ago.

“That’s something, for whatever reason, that we’re not real used to around here,” Veal said.

The Greyhounds will host the Yellow Jackets, Friday, in a match-up of teams from opposing sub-regions in 1-AAAA.

This year’s region schedule consists of a total of eight games against the ’Hounds’ four sub-region 1B-AAAA foes, Hardaway, Harris County, Westside, and Upson-Lee, as well as four games against sub-region 1A-AAAA opponents, Americus-Sumter, Bainbridge, Lee County, and Thomas County Central.

The games against the sub-region foes count for seeding for the region playoffs.

The games against teams from the opposing sub-region only serve to break ties and settle seeding for the state playoffs once the four teams who will represent 1-AAAA have been decided in the region playoffs.