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Naylor baseball to feature new look pitching staff as it seeks to defend OFC title
NAYLOR, Mo. - Naylor center fielder Cody Jones bought a new red and black Wilson glove in the spring.
It still looks brand new because a week after he got it, high school sports were canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s been 10 long months since the Eagles won the Ozark Foothills Conference Tournament for the first time since 1989.
“I’d say, with the extended offseason, we’re a little further behind than we were starting last year,” Naylor coach Lee Eagle said. “(The OFC) is going to be competitive this year, it is as simple as that. I feel like last year is one of the closest the group has been in total in a few years. I feel like East Carter is going to be good. Clearwater is going to be good, Neelyville is going to be good. I think Greenville is going to come back and be more competitive. I think Twin Rivers is going to be more competitive. That’s what we like to see. We want to play the best competition we can.”
Naylor finished 10-5 last fall with two senior pitchers in Chase Sarabia and Seth Jones. The Eagles had 18 total wins from 2012-2017, but have won 21 total games the past two years to mark a turnaround for the program.
“I think there might have been 10 innings all season that weren’t thrown by those two seniors. So we’re down on experience pitching. We’ve got some pitchers, but they haven’t had a lot of innings in high school baseball,” Eagle said. “Pitching is what we are going to work on, predominantly. We are getting our fundamentals in, but as the season wears on, that’s what I’m hoping we develop is our pitching.”
Currently, Naylor’s pitching staff is a mix of five players and Eagle hopes a different pitching strategy will be effective this year. Instead of having two or three starters throw most of the game with a late reliever, he’d like to see more variety and break up the pitching duties a little bit more.
“Every team’s going to see, hopefully, a couple of different arms instead of just seeing one for the majority of the game. But there’s always that possibility that one or two develop. If so, you can’t hardly take the ball out of their hand when they are throwing,” Eagle said.
Naylor returns four seniors after graduating four seniors. Jones and starting catcher Matt Rigdon return as two of Naylor’s top hitters and should hit third and fourth in the lineup much of the season.
Jones finished the fall season with better than a .500 batting average and Rigdon had one of the team’s better slugging percentages.
“I might have been able to make All-Districts but you never know. Spring is a whole different season, maybe hit a slump or something,” Jones said.
Added Rigdon, “We can’t hit no slumps. All the seniors are on thin ice this year. We’ve got to do what we can to show what we’ve got for college.”
Senior Matt Ogden is back at second base, as well as sophomore Cameron Sarabia in left field.
“Our defense is definitely going to step up. So is our pitching and batting, and our leadership, as well,” Ogden said.
While some of the players had the opportunity to play a little bit of summer baseball after coronavirus restrictions were lifted, others have effectively been off since last fall.
“Those guys who got that opportunity came into our first week of practice a lot stronger fundamentally. Those who have had the full time off since October, it is definitely having to reinforce some of those fundamentals they’ve let lax,” Eagle said. “We’ve got a few kids that have been active over their extended break, but by and large, most of them are behind on conditioning.”
Clearwater
2019 Record: 10-4
After going undefeated in the fall in 2018, Clearwater had another strong fall last year and went into the OFC Tournament as the second seed. However, the Tigers were two-hit by Naylor’s Seth Jones in the semifinals and shutout by East Carter in the third-place game for a disappointing finish to an otherwise strong fall.
Clearwater beat Naylor 6-3 early in the season and lost to East Carter 3-2. It’s only other loss was 5-2 against Neelyville, which it had beaten 16-1 in early September.
In each of their 10 wins, the Tigers scored at least six runs.
East Carter
2019 Record: 11-8
In his first full season as head coach, Ethan Boyer led the Redbirds to a 4-1 regular season record against OFC competition and the top seed in the OFC Tournament. East Carter’s only two OFC losses last year were against Neelyville, who shutout the Redbirds in the OFC semifinals.
East Carter beat second-seeded Clearwater in the third-place game.
Ellington
2019 Record: 14-9
After winning the 2018 state championship, the Whippets lost their first three games of the fall. It would be their only losing streak of the season, though.
Ellington closed the season 12-4 and beat Van Buren 4-3 to repeat as the Big Springs Conference Tournament champions.
After going 7-11 in 2015, Ellington has put together four straight winning seasons in the fall with 59 total wins. They won 17 games in both 2017 and 2018.
Greenville
2019 Record: 0-14
It was a tough fall for the Bears after going 10-7 in 2018. The lost their season opener 1-0 to Alton and had another one-run loss to Bismarck. They allowed at least 10 runs in 11 of their 14 games.
Neelyville
2019 Record: 12-12
The Tigers went from 2-17 in 2018 to a .500 season last fall. They didn’t win more than two games in a row and didn’t lose more than two games in a row. The up and down season lasted all the way to the OFC championship.
The fourth-seeded Tigers edged Twin Rivers 13-12 in the quarterfinals, then beat East Carter 6-0 to face Naylor.
Twin Rivers
2019 Record: 8-10
The Royals beat Naylor 6-4 in their only meeting last year, and a one-run loss to Neelyville in the conference tournament prevented a potential rematch.
After a slow starter where Twin Rivers started 3-8, they won four in a row and closed the season 5-1. Its two losses after Sept. 23 were both by one run to conference foes East Carter and Neelyville.
Van Buren
2019 Record: 12-8
The Bulldogs were 11-3 during the final month of the season last fall, including a 5-3 win against the top seed in the OFC tournament, East Carter.
Van Buren then shutout Alton in the Big Spring Conference semifinals before losing 4-3 to Ellington in the championship. Van Buren last won the conference tournament in 2016 when it beat Ellington 4-0 in the finals. The Bulldogs and Whippets have faced off for the conference crown in three of the past four seasons.