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Advance, Bloomfield baseball looking to correct courses in league tourney
Sunday, April 17, 2022
Advance baseball coach Neil Johnson speaks to his team following a game against Dexter recently at East City Park in Dexter.
Tom Davis ~ Tdavis@semoball.com
Every season, regardless of the sport, is a journey for teams, and the Advance High School baseball squad is realizing that of late.
The Hornets opened this season winning seven of its initial eight games but have fallen on hard times by dropping three consecutive games, including a pair of shutout losses to Dexter (10-0) and MSHSAA Class 1 defending state champion Oran (2-0) last week.
“We just have to be able to hit the ball,” Advance coach Neil Johnson told Semoball.com following the loss to the Eagles. “We have to continue to work on some things; the main one being our hitting.”
There is no time to lament a losing streak for Johnson’s squad. The Hornets (7-4) open the Stoddard County Athletic Association tournament today at 4:30 p.m. by hosting Bloomfield (3-6).
Advance is the No. 4 seed, while the Wildcats are the No. 5 seed.
The Hornet offense was clicking earlier this season, as it smoked Rector (Ark.) 12-0 and Caruthersville 10-0. Johnson’s kids then got an impressive 3-2 win over a solid Charleston squad.
“We’ve got athleticism,” Johnson said. “We work on the right things in practice. I’ve got a good group of boys with good heads on their shoulders.”
The recent skid started with a 5-4 home loss against Chaffee in 10 innings, and Johnson’s team hasn’t recovered.
“We had our chances to win that game,” Johnson said of the tight loss to the Red Devils, “we just didn’t pull through with timely hits.”
Five times this season, the Hornets have scored in double figures, but that productivity has disappeared recently.
“We’ve just got to keep on focusing on the right things,” Johnson said, “keep working hard, and we’ll catch our breaks, eventually.”
The Wildcats are also in a malaise following a strong start.
After beating Risco (11-1) and Bell City (5-4), surrounding a loss at Doniphan (14-4), Bloomfield has dropped five consecutive games.
Only once during that streak has Bloomfield produced more than three runs.
Both teams are enduring growing pains, having just two seniors.
Advance seniors are Jaren Schrader and Hunter Tidwell, while Bloomfield has Ethan McRoberts and Will Robison.
“I’ve got two seniors and the rest are juniors (six of them) and three freshmen,” Johnson said.
Woodland (8-1) earned the top seed in the tourney and will host No. 8 seed Richland (Essex) (0-5) today at 4:30 p.m.
No. 7 seed Bell City (2-7) will visit No. 2 seed Dexter (5-7) today at 4:30 p.m.
No. 6 seed Puxico (3-4) will visit No. 3 seed Bernie (10-3) today at 4:30 p.m.
The Woodland-Richland winner will face the Advance-Bloomfield winner (higher seed hosts) on Tuesday, while the two other winners will compete at the same time.
The championship and third-place games are to be played on Wednesday.