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The Dupo Jr High Baseball Tigers are 2-5 at the time of this article. That may not seem like something to get excited about but second year coach Kraig Roth, sees an upside. Not quite half way through their schedule the Tigers see some light at the end of the tunnel. Coach Roth said, “The schedule is a little top heavy. As a coach I like that. That way the kids get hit with quite a bit right off the bat. That’s going to prepare them for the remainder of the season. Our goal is to be the best team we can be when regionals start.”
While the Tigers have dropped five of seven games the team is optimistically upbeat. Those losses have come at the hands of teams much larger and deeper than the Tigers’ squad. Schools like Highland, Mascoutah and Collinsville. In addition the Tigers have been competitive in those losses. Coach Roth said, “They’ve handled the losses pretty well. The hardest thing for them and for me is a few of the games we lost we kind of shot ourselves in the foot. Like the game against Highland. In that game our starting pitcher threw five innings of no hit ball. But we were making so many errors behind him we were losing 5-0 and we couldn’t climb out of that hole. So even though it was a loss we learned some things about ourselves in that game. We saw we had some good pitching and maybe if we limit our mistakes and errors we can compete with some of the larger schools on our schedule.”
Good pitching is probably the greatest cause for optimism on this Tiger team. Coach Roth has three solid starters but he also has three other pitchers who have been able to contribute and pitch solid innings. Coach Roth said, “Pitching has turned out to be our strength and that’s something I was really concerned about going into the season. I thought we might have to get by with just smoke and mirrors on the mound.” What about defense? “Defensively I think we’re really sound up the middle but a little weak on the sides.” Offense? “Offensively our kids do swing the bats. We don’t go up there looking for walks, our kids put the bat on the ball and put it in play. Good things will happen if we’re putting the ball in play.”
As the Tigers move on from here the schedule does change. The Tigers will be facing more schools that are similar in size and talent. I asked Coach Roth how he is preparing the boys for the stretch run. He responded, “Our emphasis from here on out will be to reduce the number of errors and mental mistakes we’ve been making. Now that we’re well into the season we don’t get to practice much but when we do we’re
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