Tigers prepare for season opener against Columbia

The Mountain Home Tigers open their baseball season this week, hosting Columbia on Thursday, March 8, before they head to Columbia on Friday.

The Tigers are coming off a tough 7-17 season last year. But if this year's turnout for baseball is any indication, Mountain Home head baseball coach Mark Cotton remains optimistic about this year.

"The turnout was really good this year," the coach said. "We had about 41 kids try out, and unfortunately, we had to cut some kids. It's always tough to do that. You wish you could keep them all, but you have numbers you've got to stick with, and it's a good problem to have. We haven't had that in the past."

In recent years, the team had an average of 32 students attend the tryouts, "so to have those extra kids come out and to have that interest in baseball, that's a great thing," the coach said.

The team features nine seniors with a huge freshman class.

"We're really excited about the freshmen," Cotton said. "We have a really talented group of freshmen, so the future is looking bright for the program."

Cotton's varsity squad is senior dominated, which has him feeling equally optimistic about this year.

"We only lost a couple starters from last year, so we've got a lot of talent coming back," the coach said. "If we can put it together, I'm really optimistic about this season. I think we can really do some great things."

Back for his fourth year as a starter is senior shortstop Jake Hennessey, who hit .457 last year with 19 RBI, three doubles, six triples and two home runs.

Back for his third year of varsity ball is junior Skyler Podesek, who hit .360, with 31 RBI, eight doubles, two triples and six home runs.

Seniors Alex Rodriguez and Jared Day will lead the pitching staff. Rodriguez went 2-6 last year, striking out 64 batters in 55-plus innings. Day went 1-4, and struck out 30 batters in 32 innings of work on the mound. Both also had very successful seasons in American Legion ball last summer.

Cotton expects to have huge contributions both at the plate and on the hill by Gage Curtis and Austin Bodily, who both had great summers on the Royals American Legion team, he said.

The coach expects his team to be in the thick of the conference race, battling Middleton and Bishop Kelly for the top spot.

"I think Middleton's going to be very talented," he said. "They were really good in Legion last year. They get a lot of kids out for the program."

Meanwhile, he expects Bishop Kelly will remain "the class of the conference."

"They've got a lot of pitching," he said. "But I think we're going to sit well with the conference if we can get our outfield figured out and if we can execute the things that we didn't execute last year offensively."

Looking ahead to this week's double header, Cotton said the Wildcats lost their ace on the mound at the end of last season.

"I expect us to come out and do some good things early in the season," the coach added. "I'm not a huge fan of starting with conference games to start the year. But at the same time, I think it's making these guys focus up earlier, and the intensity has been really good."

He added that his seniors, "have really taken the leadership roll, and hopefully it shows in these first games."

Both games on Thursday and Friday start at 4:30 p.m.