The Minden Crimson Tide baseball team got back on the diamond over the weekend in an umpired scrimmage with Byrd, officially kicking off baseball season in Webster Parish.
The Crimson Tide have been hard at work preparing for the start of the 2016 season, and head coach Dean Francis said the key thus far for his senior-heavy team is working hard everyday.
“We’ll be senior oriented; I think there’s 10 of them,” Francis said. “It should make coaching easy. I’m very excited to get going.”
Saturday at Byrd, the Tide were a little rusty as one would expect in their first live action of the year.
“We saw some good things,” Francis said. “But we also saw some things we have to work on.”
The Tide return several starters from last year’s group, including Trace Francis, Gunner Stephens, Peyton Gray, Gavin Smith, Matt Eskew and Cade Coleman.
With those guys, as well as some solid additions from underclassmen, Minden should swing the sticks well.
“We’re going to have to string some hits together,” Francis said. “We’re not a power team, so moving runners and sacrificing and doing the things we normally do will be important.”
Young arms will have to step up as well.
“We saw some good things arm-wise Saturday,” Francis said. “The only left-hander we have is Cameron Dollar and he looked well on the mound. Hunter Wilkes, he’s a sophomore who pitched well and he’s a guy we’ll look to throw a lot of innings.”
The Tide take the field again on Saturday at Griffith Stadium for a scrimmage with Natchitoches Central at 4 p.m.