Hiwassee Dam – The Eagles’ baseball team kicked off their season with (a win or loss) 5-1 against Towns County on Monday.
Prior to beginning their season, the Cherokee Scout spoke with head coach Tommy Strickland about their goals and how they will continue to build off of last season.
Q: What are your goals for this season?
A: “Our goal is always to be better than we were. I don’t try not to put numbers on it because I don’t know. We want to be as good as we can be and better than we were.”
Q: What will the team do to achieve these goals?
A: “We lost a very valuable pitcher last year, so pitching is going to be our number one concern at this point. He also was a good hitter. So losing Evan Hendrick was really hard. But we have a lot of young kids coming up. So working on pitching and someone to replace him”
Q: What will the team do to build off of last season?
A: “We’ve worked since I came here two years ago to become more disciplined as we play and that’s the biggest thing. That’s what I tried to get across in this meeting was we want to be more disciplined in the way we play.
“We’re always going to try to take the extra base, we’re always going to run it, we’re always going to try to play good defense, you have good pitching and we’re going to be aggressive in those things. But just be better.”
Q: Who are some players that you think will stand out this season?
A: “I generally try not to call players out. The obvious ones are we have some pretty good seniors – Clay Davis, Colton Berrong, Dawson Headley, Kyle Taylor and Carson Taylor. Gonna be really valuable additions to the team. Our catcher is Trenten Beavers. I nicknamed him ‘Princess,’ and he’s a very integral part as well.”
Q: Are there any games that standout to you?
A: “Well, of course, Murphy. The proximity makes it important to the boys, and we enjoyed playing them. And they’re always a good challenge for us.”
Q: What will the team do to prepare for the first stretch of games?
A: “The first two weeks are non-conference games. I schedule them because we look at them as additional practice. So we’ll have a lot of players going in and all of that to try to build so we’re just going to carry over, you know, working on solid fielding and change a lot of pitchers. We’ll do a lot of those things just to be ready for that and to continue to practice.”
Their next game is at 4 p.m. Friday at home against Copper Basin, Tenn.