Republic’s baseball team has three returning starters, three seniors, and a roster full of juniors competing for spots. Through the first week, that’s looked exactly like what you’d expect — a 13-4 win over Hillcrest, two one-run losses in Columbia to very good opponents, and a rough night at perennial power Rogersville. The Tigers are 1-3 with 28 games to play and plenty of room to grow.
Seven starters graduated from last year’s 15-16 team, including Jackson Overstreet (.361, 35 hits, 24 RBI), Isaac White (.333, 34 hits, 18 RBI), shortstop Ryder Davis, and pitcher Cannon Ellison.
What’s left is a young and deep roster. Head coach Curt Plotner has a lineup where almost everybody can run, a pitching staff with arms to rotate, and a team that’s already shown it can compete — even if it hasn’t figured out how to finish yet.
“There’s a lot of competition within the group, but they’re embracing it and they’re doing a good job,” Plotner said before the season.
Senior Preston McCracken hit .354 with 29 hits and 23 RBI last year and went 3-3 on the mound with a 3.73 ERA, earning all-conference honors. He’s back in the middle of the lineup, and he’ll be at third base and anchor the pitching rotation — when healthy.
McCracken is coming back from an injury, and so far, the return has been careful. He left his first pitching start after one inning with arm discomfort and has been in the lineup as a designated hitter since — still hitting, just not on the mound yet. Before the season, in intersquad games, he looked sharp.
“He was really dominant, but the thing that got my attention was he was throwing the ball pretty firm in the bottom of the zone, which is going to help him be way successful,” Plotner said.
McCracken said the youth won’t slow the team down. “We’re a lot younger. Our senior class is only three,” he said. “But we’ve had some intersquads and some practices and we look not like a young team, not like a rebuilding team. We look confident and ready to play.”
Behind McCracken on the mound, Plotner has arms. Brennan Overstreet, a junior who went 1-3 with a 2.41 ERA last year, will be in the rotation along with Cooper Thomas, who pitched in big games as a sophomore. Kyler Tate, a senior submarine pitcher committed to Metropolitan Community College, will see a bigger role this season. Gabe Benjamin and Maddox West both had strong JV seasons and step up to the varsity level, and Chase Connell and Nolan Lashley can bring some velocity out of the bullpen. During Republic’s double-header in Columbia, Overstreet held Rolla to two earned runs in five innings in a game the team nearly won.
“We’ve got plenty of guys that can get up there and make quality pitches for us,” Plotner said.
Zayden Danielson, who joined the varsity lineup late last year due to injury, had been slated as the primary shortstop, but an early injury of his own has sidelined him for several weeks. Thomas will primarily play second base when he’s not pitching, with Brennan Overstreet taking the shortstop spot and Greg Hicks sliding into the slot at third. Maddox West has started the season at first, with Evan Rockhill likely to see time there this season as well.
Behind the plate, Plotner plans to platoon Lashley and Landon Perkins rather than run either one into the ground over a 32-game schedule in seven or eight weeks.
“I don’t want either one of them catching 32, 33 games,” he said. “You’ll see more of a platoon type thing this year — one of them catching, one of them in the outfield, one of them at DH, just kind of moving them around.”
The early returns suggest that plan is paying off. Lashley hit .290 with 20 hits, 11 RBI, and eight stolen bases as a freshman — and he’s been the Tigers’ hottest bat through the first week, going 4-for-4 against Rock Bridge and doubling in both games in Columbia. Perkins drove in a key run with a double against Rolla.
The outfield will rotate through Fisher Moore, Connell, Jackson Taylor, Lashley, and Perkins. The speed out there is the common thread. Moore has already made multiple highlight-reel catches from his spot in left field.
“We’ve got seven or eight guys that are going to play that can all run a little bit, so it’s going to allow us to maybe steal some more bags and bunt and do some different things,” Plotner said. “I think you’ll see more of a small-ball approach than we’ve had in the past.”
Brennan Overstreet, a junior who’ll hit in the top half of the lineup and play multiple positions, said the depth is what stands out. “I feel like really anyone can play anywhere,” he said. “I feel like we’re going to have a different lineup every game, just with all the depth that we have.”
McCracken expects the defense to carry this team. “We’ll have one of the best defenses in the COC, all around,” he said. “Hitting will be really scrappy. We got a bunch of contact hitters in there, so we won’t be striking out a lot. We’ll be putting the ball in play and finding out how to score runs.”
Plotner said the season will be a success “as long as we’re getting better every day. Even the best teams in Major League Baseball that win a World Series only win about 60 or 65% of the time. We had a team win our district last year that was below .500 for most of the year and then ends up playing in a state quarterfinal. So it’s really competitive — it’s just kind of measuring, are we getting better every day and are we getting closer to where we want to be?”
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