Brad Mitchell enters year two at the helm in Louisville and his team is growing every day.
The veteran head coach has had experience across the state in baseball and has produced championship teams. He took over a difficult rebuild at LHS, but the coach is starting to develop a culture with the Wildcats.
Mitchell took over a four-win baseball team and won three district ball games last season with a 6-11 record overall. This season, the team’s goal is to take another step in improvement. He has already seen it from his players.
“I know it sounds cliché but we’re a little older and know a little more,” Mitchell said of his team. “We’re able to think some situations through instead of just going out there and playing. We still have a lot of work to do. We’re kind of still in the process because we have some younger guys, and we have some building blocks we’re dealing with.”
Just a couple of weeks into the season, the Wildcats are halfway to the win total that Mitchell had in year one. LHS knocked off Nanih Waiya 8-7 in the first week of the season but had a disappointing 9-1 loss to Noxapater.
Last week brought some new opportunities for the Wildcats and the team came through with a couple of wins against bigger schools. LHS took on West Point on Tuesday and won 12-11 and then beat Columbus 15-8 to move to 3-1 on the young season.
Mitchell is relying on really young talent to lead the way for him on the mound as sophomore Josh Ammons, freshman Mitchell Turner and junior Wyatt Long make up his rotation this year. Some young faces are also doing some damage for him at the plate as well, but a lot of the same players were doing it last year, which helps.
“Instead of having eighth and ninth graders on the mound, we have ninth and 10th graders. Are we going to overpower people? Probably not. But we’re going to have to do a good job of locating and pitching smart,” Mitchell said.
“We are playing well offensively. We have some base running mistakes we have to cleanup at times. There are times we do our own thing out there and it gets us in a bind. We’re doing great though on offense, it’s just cutting down on mistakes on defense.”
The Wildcats played West Point at home on Tuesday looking for a season sweep and will be busy this weekend. The team hosts Winona on Friday night at 7 p.m., will host Kemper County on Saturday at 11 a.m. and then make the drive up to Cumberland to take on East Webster at 3 p.m.
LHS will also kick off a busy schedule again next week by hosting Caledonia on Tuesday night at 7 p.m.
