Oak Ridge baseball looks to grow in 2023

The Oak Ridge baseball team went from 0-16 in 2021 to 4-16 in 2022 and is getting ready to strive for more improvement this season.

The Blue Jays lost only three seniors to graduation, including standout Logan Dewitt, who is playing college ball at Central Methodist University. Head coach Robert Friese said on the mound they need replacements and position wise they should be ready.

“Our three and four guys from last year are gonna have to step up and after that, we’ll be pretty young on the hill, a freshman is gonna get some innings, a sophomore is gonna start some games and we have a junior who will get a lot of relief time,” Friese said. “We had guys to fill positions, it’s gonna be a plus for us, we filled spots and are able to move people around where they need to be which will make us a better team defensively.”

The majority of the team is very young this season with the underclassmen outnumbering the upperclassmen 10 to seven. Coach Friese said with Oak Ridge being a small town all the kids know each other well and although some players are young they are still returning starters.

“These guys have grown up together so the chemistry won’t be an issue, we have some freshmen that will play but a few sophomores saw significant time last season like our catcher Grant Meyer,” Friese said. “He was starting catcher for us last year as a freshman and he's gotten stronger. He's gonna be much better behind the plate this year as far as being able to handle the running game a little bit better, his arm strength has definitely gotten better.”

The Blue Jays' schedule will not be easy this season with the Scott Mississippi Conference containing pretty good ball teams like Oran, Kelly, and East Prairie. As far as the non-conference schedule goes Friese said they beefed it up to prepare for when the post-season gets here.

“Other than Delta and Leopold most of our schedule consists of class 2 and 3 programs and with Perryville, that’s a class 4 school, tough competition bodes well for us,” Friese said. “Depending on which district we get I feel like we have a good chance to come out of it, we got a couple guys who are still bitter about losing the district championship last year.”

Oak Ridge begins their season at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, March 17 at home against Bismarck, a team that beat the Blue Jays 8-0 in their last meeting.