Oxford baseball is starting the season with a young team, losing many important players from last year. While many players are new to big roles, coach Cade Hoggard and the two captains, junior James Blackwood and senior Sharpe Smith, serve as leaders to these younger players helping them progress and get better.
”I really like this team because of how hard they practice, we have had a lot of good practices together, but building off of it we had some young guys that stepped up for us last year,” Hoggard said.”Building off of their success and experience, and we have got to have some other guys rally around that as well.”
Oxford baseball has historically been a winning team, so the expectations are always high for the baseball team. Smith says he expects to win 20 regular season games, and wants to win in the district.
“I think everybody always has high expectations for Oxford baseball, a couple of state titles and a couple of really good runs in the playoffs the past few years,” Smith said.” I expect to win 20 of our 28 regular-season games. I think that is a very attainable goal and hopefully win the district and I am just excited to watch the young guys grow and watch the guys that have played continue to mentor these younger guys.”
Losing eight seniors from last year is very tough on the baseball team since the younger players have less experience than the upperclassmen. Hoggard says it can be very hard to replace the role that those seniors had, but expects some of the younger players to fill that role that the upperclassmen previously had.
“Leadership is one, and those guys as far as the experience we were able to do things because a lot of them have played since their 10th-grade year, the Kents, the Stinnetts, the Rayburns, and Harpers, and all of the other ones, so it is hard to replace those guys,” Hoggard said.”We have got kids that are ready to step into that, but when you lose that leadership, it is sometimes tough to replace.”
Every team faces challenges throughout the year, but Blackwood says that this year, they will have to persevere through many more because of the players they have lost in years past.
“We are going to have to overcome a bunch of challenges, you overcome a bunch of challenges every year, but especially this year,” Blackwood said.” We do not have a lot of returning guys so a bunch of guys are going to have to grow up really fast because they are not going to have that experience, but I do not see it as a problem, but just a challenge that we are going to face.”
Hoggard says that this team has a chip on their shoulder and that he believes his team will perform very well even through some adversity they may face during the course of the season.
“We are just a really close-knit team, I think the pitching is a more experienced area, I think this team has a little chip on their shoulder, and that can go a long way in high school sports,” Hoggard said.
