After losing three of four games in its season-opening tournament in Bagdad, coaching will need to fit the personnel in the Camp Verde High School baseball program.
Following an early test Tuesday, March 1, at the bigger Cougars of Chino Valley High School, Cowboys head coach Will Davis will no doubt be looking forward to what that personnel can do in his team’s home debut at 3:45 p.m. Wednesday, March 2, against Northland Preparatory Academy.
Playing a division lower than last season should help, but adjustments will need to be made afterward at several positions on what Davis called “still a pretty young team.”
That was before the Cowboys lost seven players — only two of them seniors — from a year ago.
“We tend to be progressing pretty well,” he said. “I had a lot of big losses late in the year.”
Including his staff ace and second starting pitcher, neither of whom returned to the program this season.
That has left senior Logan Conrad to step into the role of No. 1 starter. He lasted four innings, striking out three but giving up five runs Friday, Feb. 26, in a 7-6 loss to Kingman Academy at the tournament to open the season.
A three-run third inning capped a five-run Cowboys rally, however, ensuring that Conrad would not take the loss.
Junior Darren Franklin and senior Blake Penrod, who should complement junior Alex Villafranco well in the outfield as starters, each batted in two runs. Sophomore catcher Easton Braden also got on base twice as CVHS took a 6-5 lead into the Tigers’ last at-bat.
But a two-run rally, abetted by four Cowboys errors for the game, proved to be their undoing. The loss preceded a five-inning, 7-5 defeat of Wickenburg High School in which both Conrad and freshman infielder Dominic Bruno had key RBIs in a four-run third.
But that would be negated by a 9-3 setback to the Wranglers the next day that did not even last three innings, closing the tournament. Four errors were again the downfall of the Cowboys, as they were in their loss to host Bagdad High School, 5-2, earlier that day.
Braden, whose .979 fielding percentage was fifth in Division III, Section IV, last season, made his first start on the mound against the Sultans. He would give up just one run and strike out three batters in four solid innings as CVHS would carry a 2-1 lead into the bottom of the sixth inning before another walk-off rally, this time for four runs, left the Cowboys short.
These setbacks were a far cry from a 3-1 scrimmage win Feb. 19 over Northland Prep.
Penrod threw a one-hitter in a two-and-a-half-inning win over the Spartans. In every other game this young season, however — even in the scrimmage prior, a four-inning, 9-1 scrimmage win over Scottsdale Prep — the Cowboys committed four costly errors.
Juniors Wyatt Howe, who had four RBIs in the Scottsdale Prep win, and John Castillo look to stabilize the infield defense at shortstop and first base, respectively. Speedy sophomore Rafael Zapata was moved in from the outfield to guard the foul line on the third base side, while Battise and senior Bryce Wantland will battle for playing time at second.
For the full Cowboys baseball schedule, please see the Wednesday, March 2, issues of the Camp Verde Journal and Cottonwood Journal Extra.
