The Oxford Charger baseball team concluded their season on May 11 with a 1-0 loss to the Hernando Tigers in the north half championship series. They finished their season with a 23-12 record marking the Chargers’ 11th consecutive season with 20 plus wins. The Chargers’ playoff run started with a 4-3 walkoff win versus Germantown in round one, then proceeded to win the series in three games. Then a sweep of the 7A Region 2 champions, Madison Central, in round two allowing them to advance to the north half championship. The Chargers ultimately fell short of a trip to Pearl, Miss. with a 2-1 loss in game one and a 1-0 loss in game two of north half against the Hernando Tigers.
The Chargers are led by head coach Cade Hoggard who recently concluded his third season at Oxford. Hoggard shares how he thinks the team was able to overcome the many challenges they’ve had throughout this season.
“I think we had a number of injuries throughout the year, Barrett at the beginning of the summer goes down with Tommy John, so you lose your district picture of the year, which you thought was gonna be for the entire year, which we were surprised with him coming back and having the impact that he did,” Hoggard said. “But that kind of helped us develop some of these younger guys and kinda lean on some of these other guys in the pitching staff early on.”
Hoggard voiced his thoughts on how the team was able to continue to be successful all season long.
“I think what our team did a very good job on was focusing on the right here, right now,” Hoggard said. “When we had a bad game, we seemed to have better practice the next day to fix it.”
Multiple underclassmen stepped up throughout this year. 8th grader Rob Upchurch came in as the Chargers’ closer throughout the year and closed out multiple high leverage games. Sophomore James Blackwood continued his good run with the Chargers as he manned centerfield all year round. Freshman Hayes Huggins has also stepped into a big role for the Chargers this year on the mound. Senior infielder Jack Harper explains how he thinks the younger guys on the team were able to fill crucial positions this season.
“I thought a lot of underclassmen stepped up into big roles this year, especially on the mound,” Harper said. “We got guys who aren’t even in high school who stepped up and did a great job on the mound for us. We had a couple freshmen who stepped up on the mound as well. You had Hayes who pitched lights out this year, and then we even had Josh, a young guy, start on the mound for us. Those are just a few to name, but they all stepped up in really important roles.”
Hoggard and his team stressed a good culture and social environment around the team. This good culture was crucial with the unprecedented amount of underclassmen on the team with still a good returning group of seniors. Star pitcher Brady Stinnett shared his thoughts on being able to come to practice everyday to have a fun team environment.
“It was fun coming to practice everyday because I felt like there was such great chemistry and a real hunger to win for everyone on the team,” Stinnett said.
