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Thursday, February 08, 2007

New Era of Mosley Baseball

PANAMA CITY - You could’ve called last year’s Mosley High School baseball team a juggernaut.  They finished with a 20-6 record.  But, after the first-round loss in the state playoffs last year, the Dolphins lost three-quarters of its team to graduation.  A number of those players, now play collegiately.

“There’s a lot of missing spots,” junior Taye Larry said.  “We try to fill it in and bond like we were last year.”

It all starts with the coach.  Last year, skipper Jed Douglas called it quits after winning 44 games in two years with the team.  Now, a former football coach from the University of Tennessee Martin takes over.

“It wasn’t the best timing in the world having 11 or 12 seniors from last year’s team gone,” coach Mike Williams said.  “But we have a good nucleus coming back with a lot of young talent.  I think we’ll be good competitive baseball team this year.”

Coach Williams is getting good reviews from the leaders on his team.

“We definitely like him.  He’s a straight forward guy,” senior William Perry said.  “We seem to have a little more discipline on our team.”

“He’s bringing a lot of excitement,” Larry said.  “He’s not really into small ball.  We want to hit the ball, put it in play, make things happen.”

A coach can only do so much.  The Dolphins a pair of ace pitchers in Ben Francis (Gulf Coast CC) and Kyle Mitchell (Gulf Coast CC), and five big bats in it’s star-studded line-up.

Most notably, Cody Johnson, a first-round pick in last June’s Major League Baseball draft.

“It’s hard to replace people like Cody and Ben, but we got some good guys here,” Perry said.  “We’re going to work to do just as good as last year.”

“This year we’re not going to be able to depend on one person like last year,” Larry added.  “We had a few studs.  But this year, we’re going to have to even out the playing time.”

The playing time they will get will be in District 2-5A battling teams like Lincoln (19-8 in 2006) and county-rival Rutherford (20-6 in 2006).

“Our out-of-district schedule is just as tough.  We didn’t take it easy,” Williams said.  “We’re rebuilding this program, not shy away from that.”

Mosley wraps up its preseason tournament Friday against Bay High School. Then the regular season begins when Port St. Joe comes to town on Feb. 13.

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