Sports

Bulldogs setting site on another conference championship in 2008

By Jay Lupo/Of The Commercial Staff
Tuesday, March 4, 2008 10:01 AM CST

WHITE HALL — Skip Carr’s White Hall Bulldogs are on an impressive run.

White Hall Progress/Ralph Fitzgerald

White Hall has won three consecutive conference championships, losing only one league game in that span. And the Bulldogs have won at least one game in each of the last four state tournaments. They’ve also made two state semifinal appearances (2004 and 2006) in the last four seasons.

So it’s only natural that their next step be towards Fayetteville and Baum Stadium, the home of the various high school state championship games.

“That’s a definite goal of ours,” said Carr, who’s entering his 10th season as the Bulldogs’ skipper. “Five or six years ago, it was: ‘Man coach, it’d be great to go to the state tournament.’

“It’s not like that now. We’re not cocky at all, but our kids just expect that to be an automatic. We’ve been close to [Fayetteville] several times in the recent past, so that’s definitely something we’re hoping we can do this season.”

If White Hall (2-1) is to make a run at another conference championship and state title, then it’ll have to find some pitching. The Bulldogs graduated their top three starters from a year ago in Matt Boeving, Kyle Garner and Jonathan Halbert.

“Pitching is a concern for us early, no doubt about it,” Carr said. “There’s really nobody proven that’s coming back in our rotation. Whereas in years past, we’ve always had at least one kid that had pitched a significant number of innings the year before coming back.”

Carr said seniors Chris Godfrey and Sean Baldwin are expected to team with a host of juniors in Mason Reynolds, Jeffrey Hayes, Barnes Bloom, Ethan Harris and Matt Harbison to make up White Hall’s pitching staff in 2008.

“This is a good group of kids,” he said. “There’s talent in this group. There’s ability in this group. There’s just not any experience and not much confidence because none of these kids have ever thrown significantly at this level.”

Pitching aside, Carr said he feels “really good” about his 2008 team.

“We’ve got a really good feeling about our team this year,” he said. “We feel like we’ve got nine kids that are going to be very solid defensively and we feel like we’ve got a great group of bats from top to bottom in our order.

“If our pitching is where I expect it to be, then I do feel like we’ll have a good enough team to compete again.”

Leading the charge for the Bulldogs will be a host of returnees in the infield in Harbison (catcher/utility), Baldwin (shortstop), Bloom (second base) and Louis Hamilton (catcher). Harbison hit .373 with two home runs and 25 RBI in his first season as a Bulldog, Baldwin hit .281 and drove in 20 runs and Bloom hit .311 with 36 runs in 2007.

Carr said there are currently position battles ongoing at third base and first base.

“We’re still tweaking things a bit at this time of year, but I think we’ve got a good core group coming back in the infield,” Carr said. “We’ve got a few positions that are still a little bit unsettled as of now, but most of our kids are back.”

In the outfield, it’s virtually the same story with two of the three starters returning from last year’s team. Center fielder Kyle Lusinger leads the way. Lusinger hit .413 and drove in 21 runs as a junior.

Junior right fielder Ethan Harris also returns after hitting .347 with three home runs and 24 RBI last season. Harris and Harbison earned co-sophomore of the year honors from The Commercial last season.

Carr said that Harris will have to play some first base as well, and that when he does, Jared Taylor and Garrett Lee, who are battling for the starting spot in left, will both start.

“From top to bottom, our order is very, very solid,” he said. “We feel really good about our outfield with Kyle and Ethan back and Garrett and Jared being the new additions. All those kids can play.”

The Bulldogs have started their 2008 campaign off at 2-1. White Hall beat Stuttgart 11-10 and Dollarway 4-3, but lost to the Ricebirds last Saturday in the Sheridan Tournament 9-8.

And while Carr knows that it’ll take time for his team to come around because of the lack of experience on the mound, he also feels like the 2008 group should fall right in line with those of year’s past.

“These kids we’ve got, they know how to win game,” he said. “Even the ones that haven’t played much, they’ve still seen it done. These kids want to win.

“And that’s what we’re trying to build here. We want to build a program where winning big becomes commonplace. And we feel like we’re on our way to that.”

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