The Noxapater baseball team was a young one last season. Now that the Tigers lost four seniors off last year’s 6-13 team, a lot of last year’s youngsters are being counted on to provide some much-needed experience for this year’s version of the Tigers.
“We got a lot of experience last year and hopefully that will help us show some improvement,” second-year Noxapater head coach Zach Kemp said. “Speed is going to be our strength, we are going to be able to run the bases.
“We are returning a bunch of arms and we only lost one senior pitcher,” Kemp said. “As a group we are going to pitch to contact and try to get outs.”
One of the big additions to the team this year is shortstop Taylor Buchanan, a transfer from Southeast Lauderdale. “He is a good contact hitter and may wind up being our lead-off guy.”
Heading into the season the Tigers have Ethan Easley at first, Lane Bailey at second and Nick Stone — a returning senior with some experience — at third.
“He’s a fairly big kid and is still kind of growing into his frame,” Kemp said of Easley, while noting Bailey “can run a little bit and has some pretty soft hands (on defense).”
At this point James Kugle is slated in left, with junior Landon Bailey in Center and senior Ryan Whitfield in right.
“Most folks know him from football,” Kemp said of Whitfield, who has actually signed to play football for Northeast Mississippi Community College for the 2020 season. “He can run well and we are expecting him to hawk down some balls in the outfield for us.”
Junior Chevy Welborn, who mostly played around the infield for the Tigers last year, is behind the plate.
Among those looking to see time on the mound are Landon Bailey, Buchanan, Stone and Lance Bailey.
Tigers drop baseball opener to Lake
After dropping its baseball season opener by the score of 15-1 on Thursday, Noxapater was set to return to play this week by playing host to Newton High School on Thursday and Leake County on Friday, before traveling to Scott County to face Morton on Saturday.
Next week has the Tigers playing Puckett and Forest on Monday in the Forest Invitational, before returning to Forest the next day to take on Union.
Lake scored six runs in the first against Noxapater, then picked up two each in the fourth and fifth innings, before closing out the game with five runs in the fifth.
Noxapater scored its lone run in the fourth inning when Nick Stone walked, reached second on a passed ball, moved to third on a single by Lane Bailey and then scored on another passed ball.
Ethan Easley banged out a double for the Tigers in the game, while Chevy Welborn, and Jaylen Carter each added singles.
Landon Bailey and Stone each saw action on the mound for Noxapater in the game.
