A lot of good baseball players have graduated from Nanih Waiya High School over the last two years.
The Warriors had six seniors last year and three of the players who were seniors in 2018 are now playing on the community college level — Roper Ball at East Central, Bryce Stanton at Northeast Mississippi, and Dalton Luke at Holmes.
But veteran NW head baseball coach Tyler Rogers — who led the NW to Class 1A state titles in 2011, 2012, 2017, and 2018 — says his team has the talent, albeit relatively inexperienced, to be competitive in 2020.
“I believe our strength is going to be our defense,” Rogers said. “I think we can be good defensively. We just need to throw a lot of strikes on the mound.”
He said not being able to get preseason work done on the field has been a hindrance to the Warriors, just as it has to most high school baseball teams around the state.
“The weather has made it impossible to get a lot done,” he said. “We have done a lot of hitting inside, but haven’t practiced much outside.”
The Warriors finished 21-3 last season and looked poise to win their third straight state title before upset in the playoffs.
“The little things will hurt you,” Rogers said. “You can talk, and talk, and talk about it, but if you don’t take care of business it can bite you.”
Taylor Higginbotham, Tatum Luke and Tylan Glass are expected to handle most of the pithing, with Trevor Holdiness also getting work.
Going into the season the lineup appears to have Devean Turner at first, Holdiness at second, Luke at shortstop and Higginbotham at third. Gillis is behind the plate, with Donovan Turner in left, Moore in Center and Glass in right.
Rogers is also looking for seniors Dawson Eaves, Isaiah Connor, and Nick Jowers to contribute as well.
Warriors split pair of one-run decisions to open baseball season
The Nanih Waiya baseball team finally got the 2020 season under way on Saturday, splitting a pair of games against two good baseball teams.
NW opened the season with a 14-13 win over East Webster in action played at Choctaw County High School in Ackerman, then dropped an 8-7 decision to the host team later in the day.
Nanih Waiya was scheduled, weather permitting, to host Southeast Lauderdale on Tuesday and play Florence in Stringer on Saturday. The Warriors are set to play both Pearl and Neshoba Central at Ivy Park in Louisville on Monday.
The first game of the season will be one to remember. After falling 12-4 after four innings of play, the Warriors scored four runs in the sixth and then after East Webster picked up a single run in the sixth, NW scored six in the seventh to take the crazy win.
Nanih Waiya made a whopping 12 errors in the game, but countered with 13 hits.
Burket Gillis had a double, two singles, and three RBIs for the Warriors in the game, while Tatum Luke had three singles. Trevor Holdiness had a double and three RBIS, while Devean Turner doubled and drove in two. Donovan Turner picks dup two hits for the winners, while Taylor Higginbotham, Tylan Glass and Dawson Eaves added a single each. Glass scored three runs.
Nanih Waiya held a 4-3 lead over Choctaw County after six innings of play in the second game of the day. The Chargers scored four in the top of the seventh, but NW scored three in the bottom the inning to tie the game. Choctaw County scored a single run in the top of the ninth to take the win.
Shia Moore had three hits for NW in the game, while Donovan Turner had two hits and two RBIs and two runs scored, while Holdiness added a pair of singles. Also getting hits for NW were Luke, Glass, and Devean Turner. Glass had two RBIs, while Devean Turner scored twice.
