The Shiocton Baseball team will be looking to build on last year's playoff run where the team won a regional championship. The Chiefs will need to replace the graduation of 2 all-conference seniors from the 2021 spring season.
Carter McPheron will be the only senior on the baseball team this year. Carter is capable of playing a few different positions and has been practicing in those spots during the early practices to start the year.
The nucleus of the team is the core group of juniors that consists of Dawson Schmidt, Braxton Ebben, Logan Ebben, Bennett Wilcox, and Colton Schuh. This junior group has been playing together for quite some time starting in their days in little league. All of them have gained valuable experience from their successful sophomore year, and now they can be the veterans that keep the momentum rolling. Dawson Schmidt will be playing in several infield positions, along with spot pitching duties. We are planning on Dawson continuing his hot streak with the bat as he finished the last part of our season with great improvement and batting in the 1-2 or 3 spot. Braxton Ebben will be our catching partner for the pitchers. Braxton improved throughout the year in 2021 and we have liked what we saw with his arm and bat in the early season practices. Logan Ebben will once be again asked to play the corners of the infield for us on defense. Logan will also be tagged as one of our starting pitchers to battle all year long for this team. Logan will be in the upper part of the lineup with great capability to getting runners in. Bennett Wilcox will also be one of our starting pitchers for the spring season. Bennett will give the opposing teams a different look with his left-handed pitching and variety of pitches to choose from. Last year Bennett hit in many different spots in the batting order and that could be the case again this year. Colton Schuh has been a utility player for our team by playing a variety of defensive positions on short notice. This year we are looking for Colton to increase his power with his at bats and to possibly lock down an infield spot.
The sophomores have had the luxury of getting more experience with the success in the playoffs. James Mutchie could end up playing in the infield or outfield and for sure will get time on the mound. Ty Marcks could be in the same situation as James and end up playing multiple positions throughout the course of the season. Gunner Baker is another sophomore who will compete for innings by playing outfield and second base. Bennett Schmidt is also going to be playing multiple positions for the Chiefs and getting time on the mound. Similar to his brother, Bennett ended the season with some good at bats and we hope that continues this year.
Our 2 freshmen are Sawyer Young and Blake Carton. Both are starting off our early practices with showing signs that they can play both infield or outfield positions and compete right away for innings.
We are hopeful the weather will change and allow us some outside time for practice, but if not, we will rely on the juniors and their years of playing baseball to get the team off to a great start. We are really looking forward to this season and GO CHIEFS!
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