As the baseball season steps up to the plate, one agenda item for the Greyhounds under firstyear head coach Noble Coley will be to get a feel for the right combo both as a pitching staff and batting order.
In the middle of that, there will be one key ally for Jones County. That would be depth, as Coley says that the Diamond Hounds have around 11 or 12 players as pitching options with most positions also being two or three deep.
Getting the best fit aligned for those pitchers will be key early in the season, as a handful of games precede the Feb. 28 region opener at home against Eagles Landing. With a 10-team region, gone are the three region contests against each team format. Instead, JCHS will play each region foe once at home and once on the road with region matchups scheduled on most Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, adding up to three region games per week.
“We want to find out who our top four are because we’re going to be playing these region games three times a week,” Coley said.
“Then, you kind of break down for who’s our middle relievers, who are our closer-type guys.
When you have 11 or 12 guys, you have some options.”
Chief among those options are Landon Pettigrew and Kaylob Harris, who had a combined 26 appearances last season.
“We’ve got some options.
The big thing is we have to keep them healthy,” Coley said.
“These first few games, there is no reason to go seven innings and going up on the pitch count, right? We have to work for these region games.”
Speaking of region games, that slate begins with Eagles Landing and Woodland prior to postseason regular and past state champion Locust Grove March 10 and 12.
So, while this weekend’s handful of games at LakePoint Sports plus next Wednesday’s home game against Putnam County may serve as a means of in-game competition, they also serve as an on-ramp to the games with the weight that matters.
“These games are coming, whether you are fully prepared or not. I wouldn’t say that the approach is different. I think the way we handle what we do with our pitchers and what we do with our lineups is different. We have a few games before we get into region play, and we want to kind of put some guys into some positions and kind of see what they can do. You see what they can do in practice, but you really don’t know until they get into a game.”
Still, there are earlyseason goals, even if they won’t directly impact aspirations of contending for the front of the region standings for a team that was 16-14 overall and 11-7 a season ago.
“None of these first few games really mean a hill of beans when it comes to winning a state or region championship,” Coley said. “But we do set goals of wanting to have this many quality at bats per game, having around a certain batting average as a team. So, in terms of reaching our ultimate goal, these early games prepare you for being able to do that.”
The multiple options go beyond the pitcher’s mound for the Greyhounds. An infield led by Brayden Lampkin and outfield anchored by Jonathan Scarbary is complemented by a catcher position, where there are not one but three options to go to in MJ Lane, Randol Jones and Jay Stinson.
‘Were gonna mix them up, and it’s whoever is hot will be back there and whoever isn’t will be next man up,” Coley said. “Obviously for flexibility, you like having three guys.”
Having multiple players able to make an impact should do nothing but make the roster better from top to bottom for the Greyhounds.
“We breed competition every day. If you’re at the two (on the depth chart), you want to be pushing to get that one spot,” Coley said. “So you never want to be satisfied with where you are at.”
