Southeastern looking for results, improvement

CHILLICOTHE – Southeastern’s baseball program is in the middle of an upward trend.

Over the past three seasons, the Panthers have put together win totals of 3, 7 and 12 — progressively.

As the dawn of the 2015 season arrives, Panthers’ third year head coach John Evans has no intentions of that trend becoming a pastime.

“We had a winning record last year and we want to build on that,” Evans said. “We don’t want to go backwards. I want my hitters to battle at the plate and my pitchers to be bulldogs out there.”

After a season in which the Panthers posted an overall record of 12-11 — to go along with a 4-10 mark in Scioto Valley Conference play — five seniors were lost to graduation.

“We’re trying to replace five seniors from last year and looking for some leadership,” Evans said. “We’re asking this year’s seniors to take on that role, especially on the offensive side of things. We need them to slide into the important parts of the lineup.”

This year’s crop of Panthers’ seniors are Cole Johnson (3B), Brandon Triplett (CF), Cody Hendershot (LF, 1B), Alec Pinkerton (2B) and Gage Mosley (OF).

Out of those names, Johnson and Triplett will be expected to lead the team on offense.

“We’re trying to get Brandon (Triplett) up early in the lineup with his speed. We want him to get on base and get the offense flowing,” Evans said. “Cole Johnson was a .300 hitter last season and we’re hoping he’ll have an even better senior year, step into the cleanup spot and be our main run producer.”

Triplett and Johnson will be producing runs much of the time for Southeastern’s ace Justin Dye on the mound.

Dye, a junior, will handle the bulk of the innings in 2015 and will be expected to act as the team’s number one throughout the year.

“Justin Dye was an all-league and all-district player from years past and will once again be called upon to carry the rotation,” Evans said. “He’ll be our most experienced guy on the mound and we’re expecting him to continue improving and help a young, inexperienced pitching staff.”

Assisting Dye on the bump will be sophomore Tanner Popp, who Evans is looking to slide into the number two spot in the rotation.

Juniors Owen Diehl (SS), Zach Ratliff (3B) and Greg Gumm (C) will also be expected to produce while sophomores Hunter Hopkins (C) and Matt Morris (1B) also split playing.

Freshmen Rex Hartman (IF) and Carson Stauffer (C) complete Southeastern’s roster.

“When I took the job here, our goal was to improve every year and we’re going to try and improve every game,” Evans said. “We’ve got expectations of where we want to be and we’re not going to shy away from those.”

Southeastern will start its season, March 31, hosting Waverly.

Panthers’ softball eyes improvement

After going just 4-16 last season and not winning a single decision in SVC competition, Southeastern’s softball program is simply looking for improvement.

Tim Lockwood, who is in his inaugural year at the helm of the program, has a goal in mind to spark that plan into motion.

“Goal number one is to win a league game,” Lockwood said. “I’ve been around the program for a couple of years and have been able to watch. It doesn’t matter who (the win is) against or where we are, we want the snowball to start rolling. We kind of want to get our footprints in the sand and keep moving forward. That’s what we’re looking for.”

The task of taking steps in the right direction is achievable, however, the task of making significant gains is a tall one due to the youth on Southeastern’s roster.

Out of 17 roster spots, 10 are underclassmen.

The team’s two seniors — Leslie Dickey (P/OF) and Mikayla Mash (SS) — will be called upon to lead by example.

“The biggest thing we’ll battle is youth. It’ll be a heavy load on our two seniors,” Lockwood said. “Traditionally, you want that leadership spread out but it’s resting on two girls. However, both of those girls are great on and off the field and very mature . I have full confidence they can handle it. But it is a big load. We’re going to need some of the juniors and sophomores that got some playing time last year to step up.”

In that group of juniors and sophomores will be Lexi Cooper, Cindellynn Murta and Mikayla Carroll.

“Lexi Cooper (a junior) was all-league last year and she’ll be one of our leading hitters. Leslie (Dickey) has had a couple of good years hitting the ball and I look forward to her taking that next step as a senior. Cindelynn and Mikayla showed flashes of power as freshmen often. They’ll be weapons on the offensive side.”

In the pitcher’s circle, Cooper and Dickey will be splitting the bulk of the innings.

“It’ll be around 50/50 but they’re going to split time on the mound,” Lockwood said.

Also on the roster are infielders Paige Triplett (3B) — a junior — sophomores Autumn Bolte (C) and Randra Simpkins (2B), as well as freshman Sierra Lawhorn (3B).

Splitting time in the outfield will be a cast of Panthers including juniors Brittany Smith, Danica Stauffer and Ashley Stauffer; sophomores Amanda Higley, Raven Gilkerson and Erica Cockrell and freshmen Caitlyn Holdren and Jamihla Cooper.

“Ultimately, each day is a new day. Are we going to better tomorrow than we were today? We work on that and we work on not riding a roller coaster,” Lockwood said. “We’re so young that the goal is not to win a district title. The goal is to be better today than yesterday. If we do that, we know we can put a tounament run together.”

Southeastern will take the field for the first time in 2015, March 31, against Waverly at home.

Derrick Webb is a Gazette sportswriter and can be reached at dwebb@chillicothegazette.com. Follow him on Twitter at @dw1509.