Play Ball Talented young players step into new roles

By Rachel Davis Karr

Coach Ryan Keedy enters the baseball season with the smallest number of seniors he can ever remember and one of the most challenging schedules he’s ever seen. Just three of his players this year are set to graduate at the end of the season, but they are backed by a large number of underclassmen who have already seen playing time.

“We have a really good group of junior and sophomore kids that have been in the program for a couple of years, so I think we’ve got a chance to be pretty good,” Keedy said.

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The team lost a large group of senior starters last year, including the starting pitcher and catcher, as well as its veteran outfielders, but Keedy said his players are ready to step up to the plate, so to speak. .

“I feel good about who is coming up to step into those roles,” Keedy said. “Some of those kids have played for two years already and they are just juniors and sophomores. We did lose a lot, but I feel like, with what we have coming up it won’t be that much, if any, of a dropoff.”

In fact, Connor Hensley, who will be stepping into catcher duties has already committed to play at Gadsden State, after playing third base for the Rockets for the last two years. Keedy is confident that position will see no drop from last year.

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Other players, like sophomore Caiden Combs, who has already committed to Auburn, still has three more years in a Gardendale jersey, so Keedy is excited to see what he will do.

First baseman Ty McGraw is committed to play at Troy and Cooper Jarvis, who missed last season with a knee injury, will be returning this year.

“Those are going to be our guys and hopefully everyone else will rally around them and they can lead the charge,” Keedy said.

The biggest unknown currently is depth at pitcher. Logan Fitzgerald is returning and he has picked up quite a few innings for the team in past years, but the team doesn’t have the returning depth in that position that Keedy has had in previous seasons.

“We’ve got some guys who are gonna have to step up, but because we;ve had so much depth in the past, they don’t have a lot of innings so it’s unknown,” Keedy said.

The veteran coach has been with the team in some capacity since 2011, but was named head coach in 2019, when the team went all the way to the quarterfinals. The next year, the season was cut to just 11 games by the pandemic. So he and his players are no strangers to adversity, but he’s eager to get the season started, even with young players and a challenging schedule.

“It will be a good test, especially right out of the shoot, to see what we’re made of,” Keedy said. “I’m excited to see our offense. I think we have the ability, with the guys who will be playing for us, to hit the ball pretty well and score a bunch of runs. I’ll be interested and excited to see how we handle our schedule. It’s really, really tough. In going through it, there’s not a whole lot, if any, games you feel like ‘oh we should win this.” It’s a really tough schedule and I hope at the end of the year, since we’ve been tested all year, we will come out on the other side ahead and prepared for postseason play.”