Young Notre Dame BB squad 'keeps moving forward'

Notre Dame High School baseball coach Dave Lawson signals for Bulldog freshman baserunner Parker Lorenz to keep heading for home against Dexter on Friday in the opening round of the SEMO Conference Tournament at Notre Dame.

Tom Davis ~ Tdavis@semoball.com

First-year Notre Dame High School baseball coach Dave Lawson knew that he would be doing a load of teaching this spring when he accepted the position last summer, and he was spot on with that assessment.

“We knew that we would be young going into (this season),” Lawson said. “We have four seniors, so, we knew that we were going to have a young bunch.”

Notre Dame’s senior class consists of Tyler Gamel, Carson Essner, Jack Evans, and Brycen Clark.

The Bulldogs advanced to today’s fifth-place game in the SEMO Conference Tournament with an 11-0 shutout of New Madrid County Central on Saturday.

No. 6-seed Notre Dame will face No. 8-seed Sikeston (4-15) at 1:15 p.m. at Capaha Field, and the red-and-black Bulldogs have won four of their past six games.

The blue-and-white Bulldogs got past the Eagles and Lawson didn’t utilize a senior in the lineup, which makes this spring challenging, but bodes very well for the future.

“We’ve got a bunch of young freshmen and a bunch of young sophomores contributing right now,” Lawson said.

Against New Madrid County Central, junior Logan Landewee paced the Bulldogs (12-11) with three hits, including a triple.

From his lead-off spot, Landewee also scored a couple of times while driving in a run.

Sophomore third baseman TJ Bolen added a hit, two runs, an RBI, a walk, and stole two bases while junior Brett Dohogne also stole a couple of bases to go with two runs and one hit.

Junior Jack Cozean got the start at catcher and handled junior pitchers Lawson Mills and Nicholas Gaeta well.

Mills threw four innings and didn’t allow a hit or a run while striking out four Eagle hitters, and Gaeta closed the game with one inning of one-hit baseball.

Offensively, Cozean had a hit and a walk while junior Channing Pattengill (one hit, one run, two RBI), junior Reid Morgan (one hit, one run), and sophomore Jake Jansen (one hit, one run, two RBI) also contributed.

A victory today would match Notre Dame’s 13-win season from a year ago, while Lawson’s team still has at least four games remaining following the SEMO Conference Tournament.

“This is part of the growing pains,” Lawson said. “I know that is easy for me to say, and I don’t take that answer very well, but I know that we have a young club.

“I’d love to have eight seniors, no doubt. I hope our seniors kind of step forward and keep moving forward with this young group.”

Following today’s game, Notre Dame will visit Class 3 No. 3-ranked Scott City (24-2) on Thursday at 4:30 p.m.