On Feb. 14, the OHS baseball team began their season with a big 15-0 win over Kirk Academy. The Chargers are led by head coach Cade Hoggard in his third season with the program, and senior captain Reid Kent. Kent has already shown his skill leading the team in hits, doubles and RBIs so far this season. After finishing just short of the north half championship with their loss against Lewisburg last season, the Chargers are once again seeking to win the state championship for the first time since 2016.
“Obviously we want to win the state championship, but first we have to win our division which we’ve been able to do for the past four years,” Kent said. “We want to stay consistent all year and keep the right mindset.”
Preparation for this year’s season started many months in advance, Hoggard shares how he thinks the team has improved over the offseason.
I think in the offseason we’ve really focused on getting stronger,” Hoggard said. “I think us having less people in the fall for practice really helped us focus on getting better individually. A lot of the guys we had during the fall were upperclassmen and we really focused on speed, agility and getting stronger and those guys really took it to heart.”
As getting stronger is one of the main focuses this season, Kent explains what conditioning is like while getting ready for games.
“We go through a lot of conditioning to prepare for games,” Kent said. “We spend a lot of time in the weight room getting stronger which I think really improves our game and helps us stay focused on our goals for the season.”
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As the season has just recently begun, the team has set many goals to try and accomplish throughout the course of the season.
“I feel like the goals are always the same, we want to win 20 games out of our 28 game season,” Hoggard said. “With our new region and classification, it will be a little more challenging this year as we have many teams in our region with a lot of talent, but I think we’ve prepared well for those teams. The top four teams in our region make the playoffs so I think that’s definitely what we’re aiming for, but I also think that we will make a run for the district title.”
With every new season come many new challenges for the team, Hoggard shares what challenges they faced during this offseason.
“With those eight days we lost in January due to the ice, we weren’t able to get everybody in shape the way we wanted to,” Hoggard said. “Along with that, we always run into some injuries which really pushes us back a little. Thankfully this season we didn’t have as many.”
So far, the Chargers have played a total of seven games with a record of 4-3 including big wins over Grenada, Kirk Academy, Center Hill and Lafayette. Kent explains how beneficial the early games in the season are to growing their roster.
“In some of our early games, I think we got a lot of those young guys in the game to help them improve, and get them ready for games later in the season,” Kent said. “When we’ll need them in bigger games, we want them to be ready, and I think they’ve already begun to get ready for those moments.”
With many returning players on the roster this season, Hoggard believes this team’s dynamic plays a crucial role in how they play.
“I think we’re a very senior heavy team with a lot of leadership,” Hoggard said. “Things are flowing a lot easier as many players have been on the team for the past years and have been under our coaching staff before so I think that really helped us get better. Along with the older guys, a lot of our younger guys have started to step up and I feel like we have a good mix of players.”
