AVON — Now in his 18th spring coaching high school baseball, Boo Ellis has been through this before.
Ellis, the coach at Riverside High School, has won 326 baseball games as a head coach. This season will be one of the year’s he has a young and inexperienced team, meaning he will have to show lots of patience.
Ellis lost five starters to graduation from last year’s squad which advanced in the MHSAA state playoffs. He said this year’s team has the opportunity to be great in the future, but it is not going to happen overnight.
“The main thing is we have to get these guys some playing time,” Coach Ellis said. “The hard part is, because of all the rain, we have not been able to play a lot of games. We are still trying to figure out who can play for us at this level.”
The Riverside field has been so waterlogged, in fact, that the Bulldogs have held a number of practices on the parking lot of the school over the last few weeks.
Coach Ellis said these practices are not ideal, but they are better than nothing.
The Bulldogs have won two of their first five games this season, and during spring break this week they are currently playing in a tournament in Vicksburg hoping to get in as many games as they can. Riverside defeated Rosa Fort 7-5 on Feb. 29 for its second win of the season.
Coach Ellis said all of his players, especially his pitchers, could use some more game experience this week.
Sophomore Eric Kingdom is likely to be the Bulldogs’ No. 1 pitcher throughout the season. Coach Ellis is also expecting pitchers like freshman Carson Graham, sophomore Christian Chamblee and freshman Jason Irion to show steady improvement throughout the season.
“Carson has done a good job for us hitting in the first few games. He has really come in and helped us out a lot,” Coach Ellis said.The leading hitter for the Bulldogs in the early season has been senior Zack Polson.
“Zach has really been hitting the ball well for us this season, and he is mainly going to be a DH for us this year,” Coach Ellis said.
Another explosive man at the plate for the Bulldogs this season will be Kingdom who will set the table for Riverside each game by hitting at the top of the lineup.
“Eric is our leadoff guy, and he does a great job of getting on base and stealing bases,” Coach Ellis said.
Sophomore Clayton Hill, junior Justin Irion and senior Ethan Blasingame are also expected to be big run scorers and run producers for the Bulldogs.
“All of these players have the ability to do well,” Coach Ellis said. “We just need to get them more at bats.”
