Dexter, Missouri - The DHS Bearcats have already had a slow start to their baseball season.  Their first game with Doniphan on Friday was rescheduled to Monday, March 18th in honor of the Lady Cats heading to Columbia to compete in the Final Four Basketball Championship games.

Tonight's game against the Doniphan Dons has been cancelled due to the rain received on Sunday. 

The Bearcats will try again tomorrow, Tuesday, March 19th in Malden as they take on the Green Wave varsity and junior varsity teams at 4:30 p.m.  Green Wave is coached by Tim Harmon. 

“We look to regain that drive to be in the district final again.  Our four seniors – Tanner Murphy, Mitch Coleman, E.J. Stanley and Shane Scott, will lead us.  All four are four year starters and understand what this program is all about,” stated Coach Harmon.

Wednesday should be the home opener against the Kennett Indians.  Game time is 4:00 p.m.  Kennett Indian's Baseball Coach Aaron New.  “It’s a new year, and we have a lot of new faces.”  The Kennett Indians baseball program lost close to half of its roster entering the 2013 season as they graduated nine seniors.

“With baseball moving to five classes this season, our district just got tougher,” stated Coach Baker.  The Bearcats will be competing in the SEMO conference with Kennett, Poplar Bluff, Sikeston, New Madrid County Central, Notre Dame, Jackson and Cape Central.  Dexter is in the Class 4, District 1 which will feature Kennett, Notre Dame, Perryville, Fredericktown, and Sikeston.  

“I would put our district up against any in the state in Class 4,” commented Becker.  “By strengthening our schedule, we will be battle tested by the time districts roll around and hopefully our younger kids will mature enough throughout the season to give us a chance to win.”

“We lost four good seniors last year,” commented Coach Brian Becker.  “But we have three returning players, Brad Potts, Jordan Miller and Logan Northern that are Seniors along with Junior’s D.J.Dowdy and Cody Neldon.”

Newcomers to the DHS Baseball program are Nick Noble and Wyatt Kiger, both Juniors; Austin Aldridge, Jason Mattison, Sion Pixley and Blake Horton all Sophomores and Chandler Young, the loan Freshman for the team.

“We will face the toughest schedule that we have ever had in my 23 years at Dexter,” stated Coach Becker.  “In addition to our rugged SEMO Conference schedule, we play state ranked teams such as Valle, Oran, Cooter, Twin Rivers and Scott City.  We also play in the Notre Dame showcase which includes Helias, MICDS, and Triad, Illinois.”

Dealing with this tough schedule was made even tougher with the loss of Senior Chase Young.  He injured his knee during the last seconds of a basketball tournament game.  Chase signed with UT-Martin to play baseball next year and with his batting average over .400 every year including his freshman year when he hit .467 he is going to be missed by his teammates.  “He has been my starting shortstop the last two seasons,” according to Coach Baker.  “Anytime you lose a player of Chase’s caliber it is going to hurt your team.”

“Fortunately Brad Potts is such a versatile player that I feel that he can step in and do a good job for the Bearcats. Moving him to shortstop, opens holes in other positions.  Plus we will be without Cody Neldon the first part of the season with his knee injury.”  Baker added.

We look forward to Bearcat Baseball!

Let's Go Bearcats!