The Holtville high school baseball team made quite the run to finish last year’s baseball season, and now the Bulldogs are ready for another run.
Holtville, which finished last year 27-13 and lost to St. Pauls in the third round of the AHSAA Class 5A playoffs. This year’s team will try to build off that, and they have a good chance to do so.
The Bulldogs return eight of their nine position starters from a year ago, and they return every single win on the pitching mound.
Holtville opens its season on Thursday, Feb. 17 at home against Stanhope Elmore.
“With everybody coming back, we will have a chance to make a little bit of noise this year if we keep everybody healthy,” Holtville coach Scott Tubbs said. “There’s a lot of things that go into being successful. If everybody does what they’re supposed to do, we should be fine. I think last year was a good stepping stone for us. This year, I think it’s time for them to step up and make some plays and do things right.”
For Holtville, it will all start on the pitching mound. The Bulldogs return all 27 wins from a year ago, and that starts with their top two premier starters.
Senior Todd Wilson and junior Randy Davis, both left-handed pitchers, return after combining for an 18-4 overall record a year ago.
Wilson, who served as the team’s No. 2 pitcher, went 11-1 with a 2.14 earned run average and had 97 strikeouts. Davis, the team’s No. 1, went 7-3 with a 2.04 ERA and 69 strikeouts.
Both will headline the team’s pitching staff again, but Davis will not be ready to go as the season begins. He is recovering from an arm injury, and will just play first base until he is ready to pitch again. Tubbs believes he will be able to take the mound again in late March or early April.
Tanner Potts and Drey Barrett will also be returning and playing bigger roles on the mound. Potts, a junior, went 6-5 with a 4.77 ERA a year ago. Barrett, now only a sophomore but already committed to Southern Miss, went 2-0 with a 1.60 ERA.
Barrett only pitched 30 innings last year, the least of the four pitchers, but Tubbs said he expects a lot out of him after Barrett has gotten significantly taller since last year and put on around 25 pounds of weight.
“For us, pitching and defense is our bread and butter,” Tubbs said. “With us having all those guys coming back, I kind of like our makeup for the year. We have all our guys.”
For the position players, Tubbs didn’t think his Holtville squad was a great hitting team last year. The team hit for a combined .281 batting average and returns five starters who hit for over a .300 average last year.
Wilson, who will start the season as the team’s ace, will also lead off most of the time. Behind him will be Sam Silas, who hit .323 last year and recently committed to play at Jacksonville State.
In the middle of the order, Barrett, Mikey Forney, Cooper Mann, and Garrett Ingram are all expected to continue to produce in the middle of the lineup.
Lane Talley, Potts, Dalton Yarroch and others will also play impactful roles throughout the order.
“I couldn’t spend as much time with the hitters as I wanted to with approaches last year,” Tubbs said. “Now we’re making all that stuff a priority. Bunting and small ball and all that. We just had our first intrasquad and your pitching is usually way ahead of your hitting early. I’m not sure our hitting ain’t ahead of our pitchers right now. We put up 16 runs in our first one. We hit a lot of balls into the gap and did a lot of things we didn’t do last year.”
