The Press-Dispatch
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The Press-Dispatch Spring Sports Preview Wednesday, April 4, 2018 D-9 GOT SPORTS NEWS? THE PRESS-DISPATCH WANTS TO KNOW! PH: 812-354-8500 FA X: 812-354-2018 EMAIL: SPORTS@PRESSDISPATCH.NET PEAK Continued from page D-7 CAMPAIGN Continued from page D-5 ROSTER Continued from page D-6 812-354-8404 292 W. Main St. • Petersburg ACCEPTING NEW PATIENTS Hours: Monday, 9am - 6pm Friday, 8am - 5pm Plus appointments by special arrangement. WALK-INS WELCOME Most insurances accepted. Adults & Children Good Luck! to all Pike Central SPORTS TEAMS! No annual fee. Annual percentage rate is accurate as of 4/2/18 and applies to new Home Equity accounts. The annual percentage rate in effect is 4.75% with loan-to-value of 80% or less and a credit score of 720 or above. If your credit score is lower than 720 and/or your loan-to-value is higher, your interest rate may be higher. Interest rate is variable and subject to change. APR will not exceed 21% or the maximum rate allowed by applicable law. Requires a checking account with us. Subject to credit and underwriting approval. Property Insurance is required. $250 early termination fee if account is closed within 12 months of account opening. Use the equity in your home to secure a line of credit to use for all of your spring home improvement projects. * NO ANNUAL FEE. Pay no interest for 90 days! Talk to a Consumer Lender today to make a smart home equity choice! (812)354-8471 • germanamerican.com SMARTEST HOME EQUITY LINE OF CREDIT freshen up any home improvement project .75 % 4 Variable Thereafter* events," Kramer said. "If they have questions, they ask, and they're re- ally good at kind of being coachable and doing those little things that you want to see from those young kids." Kramer will be assisted this season by Knight and Josh Roach. "This is the first year that Coach Roach has helped," Kramer said. "He's been in cross country. He has a lot of knowledge with that and def- initely has helped us." "Coach Knight, he's obviously been here for a few years," Kramer added. "The kids know him and they listen to him in any of the field events. He's been helping out with field events and sprints. Those are the events that he did when he was in high school, so he's definitely been an asset to the program, both the boys and the girls, helping out in those areas." Serving as team managers this sea- son will be senior Quin Bailey and ju- nior Keevon Owens. With a roster of 39, Kramer said that he was pleased with not only the team's depth, but its flexibility as well. "If you look at a lot of teams that have been successful at sectional and in our conference, they have a large number of kids, and when they do have somebody that goes down, a lot of them can replace those kids," Kramer said. "Maybe not necessar- ily your stand-outs, if they get hurt, but you do need those fourth through eighth places to score a lot of points." "Early on in the season, I'm going to try to get these kids in a bunch of different events to see where they can fit best, or help us out the best, and just kind of see what goes on," Kram- er added. "Maybe even have them fo- cus on one event or two events and re- ally, really work on those areas that they can possibly fit in when it comes to those invitationals and conference and sectional meets at the end of the year, so they can contribute." Pike Central, which opened its sea- son with an away meet at Tecumseh on Monday, April 2, will compete – along with Sullivan – in a three-team meet hosted by South Knox on Thurs- day, April 5, before returning home to host North Posey on Monday, April 9. On Thursday, April 12, the Chargers will compete in the Dubois/Pike In- vitational hosted by Jasper. coming out for track for the first time. "Morgan's just kind of testing the waters here and there to see what it is that she's going to be interested in do- ing," Biesterveld said. "The best thing I can say about all of these girls is they're willing to run whatever event you ask them to," Bi- esterveld added. "They're just like ev- erybody else – they're going to com- plain a little bit here and there – but, overall, when you say, 'I need you to run the 400,' or whatever, they're go- ing to step right up and just do it." Biesterveld is being assisted this year by Olivia Leighty, who holds the current school record in girls' pole vault. "She's been great so far," Bies- terveld said. "She is all in with it. She's got great ideas that she brings to the table. She was a good runner when she was in school and a good athlete, so I'm definitely happy to have her helping this year." In addition, Eric Knight, who holds the school record in boys' pole vault, will once again assist in pole vault as well as in the sprints. Biesterveld said that one of the Lady Chargers' goals this year will be to steadily make improvements throughout the season. "I tell them if they're in the 400 and they're running at 1:09, run a 1:08 the next meet – just keep getting better, keep working on that," Biesterveld said. "Every year, the goal is to ease our way in, get conditioned, and peak at the end. We want to peak at the PACs and sectional. That's when we want to be doing our best." Pike Central, which opened its sea- son with an away meet at Tecumseh on Monday, April 2, will compete – along with Sullivan – in a three-team meet hosted by South Knox on Thurs- day, April 5, before returning home to host North Posey on Monday, April 9. On Thursday, April 12, the Chargers will compete in the Dubois/Pike Invi- tational hosted by Jasper. er did." "Connor is probably going to lead off for me, most of the year," McDon- ald said. "He's probably my quickest kid. I hope that his bat leads to him being able to lead off for me the ma- jority of the year." For the second year in a row, the Chargers' freshman class consists of just one player – Beck. "Jacob hasn't played since he was 12, but he's getting better every prac- tice, and I'm happy to see that," Mc- Donald said. "But a two or three year layoff is really hard to come out of." In addition, McDonald has Chris McKinney – a member of the Pike County School Corporation's Board of School Trustees – serving as a vol- unteer assistant coach this season. "He seems to do well with the kids," McDonald said. "I think he's excited to be there, and he wants to be involved. That's a big step for me, because it's good to see some- body in the community that wants to come out and genuinely cares about the kids." McDonald said that one area that the Chargers definitely needs to im- prove in is on defense. "I would venture to say that we dropped more fly balls than we missed grounders last year, and that was really frustrating, in the infield and in the outfield," McDonald said. "We've changed a few rules as far as who calls out what on the infield. Hopefully, that's cleaned up this year a little bit." "In the outfield, we're not as strong in the outfield as we were last year, so we'll see how it's going to go out there," McDonald added. "We lost a right fielder and a center fielder that just didn't drop fly balls very often, and then my left fielder has moved to center field. So, hopefully, I'm sur- prised. It's a whole new alignment out there in the outfield." McDonald said that, ideally, he would like to be able to start Welch at catcher, which would enable him to use both Benton and Rice in the field. "If Welch can catch for me as good as he did as a freshman, that really clears a lot of things up," McDonald said. Pitching, however, should be one of the team's strengths this season, McDonald noted. "You've got to remember, Colton White threw against all the hard teams, and his record didn't reflect how well he pitched," McDonald said. "He had a 3.50 earned run average but he was 1-7, so that means that the other kids on the team were 11-5." "In my opinion, I think that my pitching and our catching – not our fielding, but our catching – is going to be our strongest suit," McDonald added. "Now, my job as a coach is to figure out a good line-up to produce some runs and figure out, in the field, how to minimize all the errors and mistakes. That's going to be my big- gest challenge." In regard to expectations for this year's team, McDonald is being cau- tiously optimistic. "I just want us to continue to get better throughout the year," McDon- ald said. "I know we're going to have some games that aren't the going to be the greatest, but I think we're go- ing to surprise a few teams this year, too. The goal is to, by the end of the year, be playing consistently for sev- en innings." "12-12 last year was a really good year for the schedule and the pitching we'd seen," McDonald added. "I'd like to see eight to 10 wins this year, and I think that would be a pretty good year, and then, next year, we've got pretty well everybody coming back, and we're just continuing to build." Pike Central, which opened its sea- son with a 12-1 loss at Washington on Friday, March 30, and played at North Knox on Monday, April 2, and at Boonville on Tuesday, April 3, will host Shoals on Wednesday, April 4, before participating in the Princeton Invitational on Saturday, April 7. 12TH & MAIN STREETS, PETERSBURG 812-354-6000 FICKLIN AUTO SUPPLY GOOD LUCK CHARGERS! WE WISH YOU A VERY SUCCESSFUL SEASON! WE HAVE QUALITY PARTS FOR DOMESTIC VEHICLES AND IMPORTS, TOO! NOW YOUR AREA'S EXCLUSIVE NAPA DEALER! It takes 3 mInutes to subscrIbe to 812-354-8500