Strong core leads Nevada Tigers baseball into 2013 season

By Eric Wade

Nevada Daily Mail

The Nevada High School baseball team hasn't taken the field yet, but has already seen its share of struggles.

Head coach Danny Penn's squad entered practices on Feb. 25 with high hopes since the Missouri Baseball Coaches' Association ranked the Tigers ninth in the state. But two snowstorms since the official beginning of preseason practices have made things very interesting, to say the least.

"You know, the beginning of the season, we've had two snowstorms since official practice started on Feb. 25, so we've been limited a little bit in terms of what we can do on specific days," Penn said.

Those snowstorms not only caused Penn, his staff and his roster of 41 players to alter their practice formats, but also made for some issues of a different kind. Nevada High School has already seen one sport be forced to call off its season opener due to the MSHSAA 14-day practice rule and Penn said he will be able to field a team when the regular season begins on Thursday, but some of his players won't yet have that 14-day requirement met.

"One of the tricky things with spring break being before the first game is that our players that don't play a winter sport have to get a required number of practices. So, we're going to have a couple of players that aren't going to be eligible to play the first couple of games because they haven't met that number," he said. "So, it's just going to require a bit more shuffling on our coaching staff's part to plug in those nine players that we think are going to give us our best shot."

Eligibility isn't the only issue Penn and his staff have run into in the preseason, however. Thanks to having a number of players who will be not only pitching, but also playing on the infield could cause some shuffling as well.

Our first few games, we'll maybe be plugging some people into some positions that we didn't necessarily anticipate when Feb. 25 rolled around, but that's one of the good things about having practices and everything is that you don't necessarily have preconceived ideas of who's going to be where," Penn said.

The Tigers have spent the majority of the preseason having to work indoors due to weather, but the few times they were able to go out and take the field, the focus was mainly on defense and fundamentals. With 10 returning lettermen and "two to three more who were kind of on the cusp last year," Penn said he believes the defense won't have a weak point.

There will, however, be some unknowns. Penn said Monday night that he will have to make some significant moves to account for pitchers who also play on defense and the right field spot isn't quite secured by anyone just yet.

"One of the challenges we're going to have is a lot of times, our pitching is going to be one of our starting infielders," he said.

Of those starting pitchers, both the ace of Penn's rotation, Grant Wolfe, and his No. 2 starting pitcher, Cole Sanderson are slated to be infield starters as well. There are a number of options at shortstop, including another starting pitcher in Easton Mitchell to fill in for Wolfe, but the catcher spot that will be vacated when Sanderson pitches could be another story.

"We actually may pull a freshman up to be our No. 2 catcher," Penn said.

Pitching has been the most significant question for Penn and his staff since preseason workouts started since that was the spot that was hit hardest by graduation last year.

"The biggest area we took a hit was our pitching staff because Corey Kerbs and Bubba Banes, they were 70 percent of our innings last year," Penn said. And so, finding arms to fill that void is going to be not necessarily a struggle, but it's just going to be a question mark until games actually get going and we actually see what we've got."

Most of Penn's starting rotation this year consists of players who were relievers last year, but hopes are still high. Wolfe, who was a reliever last year and was sidelined by injuries through a significant portion of the season, is back to what Penn called "100 percent" and anchors what is still an unknown, but could be a solid starting rotation. Behind Wolfe and Sanderson will be Taylor Manes, who Penn said has made dramatic improvements in his game.

"Taylor Manes is a sophomore who has really made some strides on the mound," Penn said. "Last year, he was more of a thrower and this year, he's put in a lot of hard work in preseason practices and stuff like that."

Manes is just one of many young players the Tigers will have on the roster this year, ensuring that Penn should have quite a bit with which to work for years to come.

"A lot of sophomores started for us last year," Penn said of his squad. "I think that just the experience they got last year, just playing varsity for a full season is going to be a big strength for us this year."

Coming off of a school-record 16 wins under coach Marty Atnip last year, the Tigers already have high expectations and despite making the transition to a new head coach, Penn said his squad will be ready.

"When I was first named head coach, I made it clear this is where I want to be," he said. "I'd like to start some traditions with the baseball team and the program itself."

One of those traditions is already in the works. The Tigers will mark the unofficial start of the season today, when they host what Penn hopes will become an annual Crimson and Gray game.

Penn got the idea for the intrasquad contest when he was on the coaching staff at Pittsburg and watched them play the Purple and White game.

"It's just a chance to get out under the lights in as game-like of a situation as we can before we actually get out there and have our first game," he said.

The first annual Crimson and Gray game will feature every player on the roster, but Penn said it won't be a varsity vs. freshmen and JV matchup, but rather an even mix among the two sides more based on what each player can do well. "When we did it when I coached at Pittsburg, it was a really neat experience," he said.

The Crimson and Gray game is scheduled for 4:30 p.m., today, at Lyons Stadium and will feature free admission and limited concessions.

After the Crimson and Gray game, the Tigers are scheduled to get the regular season started on Thursday, heading out on the road to take on Joplin, weather permitting, at 4:30 p.m., and once the regular season starts, will have a lot to prove. Most notably, the Tigers will finally get the chance to prove why they are entering the season ranked in the top 10 in the state of Missouri.

" It's nice to hear, but as I told all of our guys, we haven't done anything yet," Penn said of the MBCA ranking. "The recognition is nice, but I think that we have already placed high expectations upon ourselves and what we want to do this year and that recognition just kind of builds on those expectations, I guess."

Since Penn and the rest of his staff grew up in Nevada and played baseball for the Tigers, that isn't all Penn wants to prove. Even more so than being talented on the field, Penn wants to show everyone who will take notice just how respectable his players can be off the field.

"We want our program to be one that's respected around not only Nevada, but around Southwest Missouri," he said. "That's not to say that Nevada's not respected as it is, but it's extremely important to me that student athletes are students first. ... We also want to make sure that they play the game the right way; they respect the other team, they respect the umpires."

Though the Tigers are scheduled to get the regular season going this week, they may have to wait. With the forecast calling for up to 6 inches of snow by Friday, hopes aren't very high among Penn and his staff that the opener will go on as scheduled.

Penn said there is still some standing water on the infield, but the Crimson and Gray game should go on without a hitch and the field is to have a tarp placed over it after practice in the hope that it will be playable for the first of seven home games scheduled over the course of the regular season against the Mustangs of McDonald County, which is currently scheduled for 4:30 p.m., Friday.

"I'm excited to get going, excited to see what we have," Penn said. "In general, the guys are extremely excited. They're ready to go."