Clarann Yeates, eight years old, killed her first deer with her father, Wade, in Yazoo County. She is the daughter of Wade and Rebecca Yeates.

By TAYLOR MITCHELL
Sports Editor

When it was mandated that all high schools switch to the new composition bats, several teams were opposed to it because it would have a direct effect on their primary offense - the home run.
Yazoo City isn’t one of them. The Indians have based their offense on getting on base any way possible and from there stealing bases. It’s the exact type of offense some teams may switch to now that their home run ability has been marginalized.
“It won’t affect us,” 11th year Yazoo City head coach Gerald Peyton said. “It’ll affect the home run, power-based teams. We probably average 10 home runs a year, but we hit lots of doubles and steal a lot of bases.”
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By TAYLOR MITCHELL
Sports Editor

High school baseball is full of right-handed pitches. So when a lefty comes to the mound, the batter is in for a rough at-bat. Teams facing Benton this season will more than likely get a lot of looks at left-handed pitchers with senior Joshua Gelston and junior Jason Berry.
“For some reason this younger generation of kids have feared the left hander,” fifth year Benton head coach Brent Woods said. “Typically, batting stats are better against left-handed pitchers because of the angle of the ball with the swing and see it a second sooner.  Left-handers tend to intimidate high school batters because they see so many right-handed pitchers.”

By TAYLOR MITCHELL
Sports Editor

You don’t need to be Peter Gammons to see that last year’s season for Yazoo County was not a good one. The Panthers finished 2011 with a 2-20 overall record after losing a total of 17 players from the 2010 squad (with just five due to graduation).
However, a majority of the players who suffered through a two-win season are back this year, and just a year of experience has improved Yazoo County drastically. That group includes all nine starters.
“We were lucky to just win two games last year,” Panthers’ head coach Corbin Ellis Jr. said. “Two or three of them last year had played, but a majority of them had never played baseball before. It was growing pains.”
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