YOUNG CARDS TEAM LOOKS TO IMPROVE
The 2019 Columbus Cardinals Varsity Baseball Team.
Cardinal Ryan Barnes is up to bat at a recent game.
Bryce Leopold throws the ball.
ON THE DIAMOND
The Columbus Varsity Baseball Team is midway through their season with an overall record of 6-8-1 and a district record of 1-2.
The Cardinals are coming off making the playoffs the last 4 years and have 3 current college baseball players from those rosters. (Marcus Olivarez class of ’17, Wyatt Stavinoha class of ’17 and Colson Geisler Class of ’18). The Cardinals are Led by second year head baseball Coach Heath Allen and Assistant Coach Kyle Bludau.
The Cardinals split the two district games they had last week. They were victorious over Schulenburg 16-1 and had a 9-2 loss to Rice. Overall the Cardinals have a very young roster. The team has 13 players and they are: Senior Hayden Leopold, Senior Dylon Neisner, Junior Arran Thomas, Junior Corbin Klausmeyer, Junior Chase Coleman, Junior Israel Salinas, Junior Cade Collier, Sophomore Ryan Barnes, Sophomore Bryce Leopold, Sophomore Conley Pilsner, Sophomore Nate Johannes, Sophomore Nick Pavlicek and Freshman Jacob Everett.
Below are some offensive stats of season:
Batting Average: .514 H. Leopold, .385 Collier and Barnes .381
Hits: 20 H. Leopold, 12 Neisner and 12 Coleman and Thomas
RBI’s: 15 Coleman, 12 Thomas and 9 Collier and B. Leopold
HR’s: 1 Coleman
Bryce Leopold leads the way pitching with an ERA of 4.75 and 20 K’s, followed by Arran Thomas with 19 K’s.
The Cardinals are looking to make a second half push that will get them into the playoffs for the 5th year in a row. They have 11 district game remaining to get into the top 4 spots to make the playoffs. 6 games are away, and 5 games are in Columbus.
The young Cardinal Team is starting to show more consistency, which they will need heading into these final 11 games. Offensively the Cardinals have been steady scoring 109 runs in their 15 games this year. However, they have given up 138. If they can keep being aggressive on offense and tighten up the amount of runs allowed, I believe this Cardinals Team has what it takes to get into the playoffs and make a run. The Cardinals next games are against Industrial (3-19), at Ganado (3-22) and at Bloomington (3-26).