High hopes on rocks with season stoppage

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first of a three-part series on Garland County baseball players who were already showing promise before the season was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Just two weeks into the season, high school baseball teams were told that they would be unable to play or practice the sport many of them had been playing for most of their lives.

With a new field and new uniforms, Hot Springs was primed and ready to show that it was a top program before the Arkansas Activities Association instituted a "dead period" that banned practice and competing for all high school sports due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"Twenty-seven games scheduled," said Trojans head coach Justin McArthur. "And our goal was to have a winning record, and I definitely think we could have done that. The kids were fired up. ... Had a lot of enthusiasm around the program. We were really excited and still are excited if something can happen."

Hot Springs played five games before the shutdown, taking a pair of forfeit wins from J.A. Fair.

The Trojans packed in seven matchups while only coming away with one loss before the shut down occured.

"We were 4-1 with the games we played on the field," McArthur said. "We beat Mountain Pine, Ouachita. ... We played Christian Ministries. Got beat by Fordyce in the Poyen tournament. They've got a pitcher that's committed to Grambling [State University], a D-1 pitcher. We beat Little Rock Mills at home. The funny thing about it is we were 4-0 on the new home field, and that's what the kids were excited about."

With four-year senior starter Sebastian Love, classmate John Jones, junior Elias Parker and freshman Xavier Parker, the Trojans were continually improving upon last season's 4-12 record.

"We're definitely much better -- much better all around," McArthur noted. "We had 4:1 strikeout to walk ratio, much better on the mound. Defensively, we're making all the routine plays. That's where we're really coming along, but that's something that comes along mid-season, late season. Overall, much better team this year. The kids had developed, and I thought this was gonna be a fun year."

While the season remains on hold, the coach is encouraging his players to keep their spirits up and preserve "their love for the game."

"There's a life lesson to be taught in this," he said. "Whatever you love can be taken away from you in a moment's notice, and [for] a lot of young kids, baseball is their first love. It's really hurting a lot of them. They're putting stuff on social media, hoping they'll get to play again."

Lakeside head coach Leighton Hardin had been looking forward to this season for four years.

The Rams had made it through six games for a 4-2 start to the season before the season was called to a halt.

"This was kind of one of the years I feel like we've been working towards -- good senior class of kids who have worked hard and done a really good job of leading our program," Hardin said. "They've done a great job of leading the young kids and laying the foundation for those guys to take over when they leave. ... Then the young guys could use them as models. Just for us as coaches in building the program, that's one of the things we were looking forward to that we might be missing out on moving forward."

After the AAA's mandate barring teams from practicing or competing, Lakeside's coaching personnel simply encouraged the players to stay healthy and in shape while also trusting that the team will rely on the work ethic that has been instilled in them.

"With it being dead period, we really don't know what our kids are doing," Hardin explained. "We set out a workout for the kids to do, and they know what our routines are, so we told them to maintain the same routines that we normally do during the practice day. ... It's kind of up to them right now as far as the workload they're able to do.

"Of course everybody's got things during this crisis. Baseball may not be important to some people right now because someone may be sick or you've got to help the family by working and bringing in some income, so we've kinda gotta leave it up to the kid and what's important to him right now."

In his fifth year at the helm of the Rams program, Hardin would love to see the season play out.

"It's kind of a struggle whenever I do go to the school building and walk through and there's no kids there," he said. "... We knew this was going to be a special year with that group of guys because they've put in so much through the last four years and put the program where it really is today. We're hoping that there's still hope of some type of season or some type of tournament to end the year so we can at least see this thing through and it just doesn't end so abruptly for those guys."

Cutter Morning Star managed to play two road games before the break, both losses, but first-year head coach Terry Daniell was looking to his large group of upperclassmen to turn things around.

"I think we were on our way to doing a lot better than that," he said. "Just the fact that I had eight seniors this year and nine juniors -- I think we were going to be a whole lot better than we were last year.

"We only got to play two games. The first game we played -- we didn't compete at all. The second game we were very competitive, but what I hate is what's going on right now. I'm hoping and praying these kids will get an opportunity to play and have somewhat of a season. Right now it doesn't look real good. ... I would love to get to coach these kids."

Despite the shutdown of the season, Daniell has been encouraging the players to stay active and try to practice on their own.

"I can't even tell the kids to come up to the batting cage," he said. "What I have told the ones I've talked to is continue to work out, continue to throw; if you can find a batting cage somewhere, go get in it. I've also told them they cannot have any type of organized practice. They can't even come up on their own and use our facilities."

While Daniell is hoping that the season will be reinstated on April 20, he noted that it would be impossible to pick things up and play out the remainder of the season as scheduled.

"April 20 would be our last week of the regular season, so the AAA would have to at least extend baseball all the way through May and then possibly have the state tournament the first week or second week of June," he said. "The big four: softball, baseball, track, and soccer -- it doesn't look real good. If we can get back, we could possibly salvage some of the season. We wouldn't be able to play anything but conference games and go straight into district tournament, state tournament. That's just the hope."

Sports on 04/02/2020

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