The Prescott Cardinals baseball team is ready to get the bats swinging for the 2021 season, even if they aren’t returning much experience to the field. “The only returning letter winner we have from two years ago is Austin Fox,” Head Coach Jeff Ryan said. “He was named Honorable Mention All-Conference as a sophomore. Although our varsity experience is extremely limited, we hope to have strong contributions from our senior class. We have high expectations for Hayden Pattridge and expect him to anchor our infield. We have a talented group of juniors that will be playing varsity for the first time.”

Who will the Cardinal’s look to for onfield guidance?

“As always, we look to rely heavily on our upperclassmen,” Ryan stated. “Austin Fox has emerged as the vocal leader of the group.”

The Cardinals look to control games through the mound this season.

“We have a lot of pitching,” Ryan said. “We expect seven to eight guys to give us innings this year. Brad Matzek does such a tremendous job with our pitchers, year in and year out. We believe the pitchers we have – seniors Kyle Holman, Tanner Dalman, Austin Fox, Dalton Hegemann, along with juniors Phil Seifert, Ben Rohl, and Orion Tulip will give us one of the deepest pitching staffs in the conference.

“Also, I think we will be pretty strong offensively. Along with seniors, we expect Justin Syverson, Mason Bartsch and Ben Rohl to add some punch to the offense. Early on, the catching duties will be shared between Jake Hamann and Cole Dravis.”

After finishing fourth in the Middle Border Conference in the 2019 season, Prescott looks to improve its standing.

“The players always want to finish in the top three in the conference and be playing their best baseball at the end of the season,” Ryan said. “With essentially one month of baseball the boys will be playing a lot of baseball in a short period of time. We hope to compete each and every time we take the field.”

Who does Ryan expect to compete at the top of the conference?

“New Richmond is the favorite,” Ryan predicted. “The Middle Border Conference has some very good pitching this year so each and every game will be a battle.”

The Cardinals fell 4-9 in their seasonopener at home against Baldwin-Woodville and fell 1-11 on the road at Altoona on Saturday. They travelled to Ellsworth on Tuesday after the printing of this publication before playing at Amery Friday. Prescott also plays River Falls at First National Bank of River Falls Field at 4 p.m. Saturday, May 8.

Photos by Galen Bicking.