The Yazoo City Indian's baseball team is off to a slow start this year with rainy weather putting a damper on some of their first games this season.
The Indians are starting this new season led by coaches Brandon Kincaid and Jordan Davis.
Davis told The Yazoo Herald that the Indians have only played two games so far this season, and that rainy weather has had an effect on getting the team ready to play ball.
"We have been conditioning since September, and started baseball practice in January," he said. "With all of the rain we have been having, we have only been able to use our field twice since practice started. The rest of the time we have been practicing on the tennis courts or in the gym to get our guys prepared, but we are still a little rusty."
The Indians made their first appearance of the season on Saturday, February 29 at Humphreys County. Despite a hard fought battle, the Indians fell 6-5 in the game.
Davis said that Henry Harris looked good on the mound for Yazoo City, pitching 12 strikeouts in the game. The Indians also had 3 hits that contributed to the score that day.
Despite having their first loss, Davis said that some lessons were learned that day, but the Indians will recover.
"We are still trying to find our identity," he said. "We are slowly coming together and seeing that we can be a winning team, but it's a process."
The Indians traveled to Mendenhall to play their second game of the season on Monday, March 2.
This time the Yazoo City boys fell 11-0 to their opponents at Mendenhall, whose pitcher threw a no-hitter from the mound, but Davis said that it was the wet weather early this season that contributed to the lack of performance at the plate.
"We really haven't gotten to see much live pitching so we are still trying to knock the rust off," he said.
Davis said that talent-wise, the Indians have several good players that they hope to see great things from this year.
The team has five seniors on the roster this season, including Claude Collum, Patrick Jones, Henry Harris, Jeffrey Scott, and Alexis Blunt. Davis said that Collum, Harris, and Jones will likely be some of their best hitters as the season progresses, and one JV player, Myron Straughter, has the potential to have a breakout year as well.
"Henry Harris is our ace pitcher this year," Davis said. "He has a great season ahead on the mound and has done well batting, with a homerun already this season in the JV game against Mendenhall."
As the team's center-fielder, Davis said that Claude Collum has a lot of speed in his range of the outfield, and has been timed at running 6.6 in the 60 yard dash at the start of this season.
Putting these two games behind them, Davis said that the Indians will continue to work and hone their skills, and improve in the areas of batting and base running.
"We have got to make better contact with the ball," he said. "As far as base running, we have set a team goal to beat the state record in stolen bases this year."
The Indians will have another chance to play ball this week, with home games on Friday, March 6 at 5 p.m. and Saturday, March 7, at 12 p.m.
The Yazoo City boys will also have more opportunities to use their skills next week during a Spring Break tournament in Vicksburg.
"We believe that once we get going and play more games that we will be able to do well," Davis said. "We have got a great group of guys that have worked hard all pre-season and coming into this season. I honestly believe that the results will show, it's just going to take a couple of games to knock the rust off and get us going,"
