Batavia’s pitching staff is led by returning First Team All-Southern Buckeye Conference selection Collin Sammons.

Batavia’s pitching staff is led by returning First Team All-Southern Buckeye Conference selection Collin Sammons.
By Chris Chaney
Sports Editor

Familiarity and experience has bred expectation on the baseball diamond at Batavia High School.

The Bulldogs are in first place in the Southern Buckeye Conference American Division midway through the year and are looking to claim their second division title in three years.

“We have had the same core of guys playing varsity for the last two or three years, so we expect this group to win more than pretty much any other group that I’ve had,” Batavia head coach Geoff Carter said. “For the most part, they’re winning the games that they should. Just like any team, we’ve lost a couple that we think we should have won or could have won, but it’s a long season and we’ll have those games here and there.”

At 8-4 overall and 4-2 in the SBC, the Bulldogs return five SBC All-Stars, including three First Team selections. That top-level talent has Batavia eying their first league title on the American side of the conference since switching over last season.

“It’s not really a surprise, but one of the best hitters on our team right now has been Zach Newcomb,” Carter said of the Bulldogs junior infielder. “He hits to all fields; he’s batting .500 right now and has pretty much been our most reliable hitter. He’s only struck out three times, two of which were (Monday), in over 50 at bats.

“Another who has been a really pleasant surprise has been another junior, Brandon Eckert. He’s done well on the mound, but we’ve put him in the outfield and he really solidified our outfield. At the plate, he’s hit really well as well.”

Batavia is in the midst of a stretch of games that will go a long way in determining how they fare in the conference. A tough 2-1 loss to New Richmond on Monday, April 18 was followed by games against Reading on April 19 and Goshen on April 20. Western Brown and Amelia follow on April 22 and April 25, respectively. When the Bulldogs emerge from that gauntlet, the conference will be pretty well settled.

“We play the same top three teams in the same week and we do it twice,” Carter explained. “If you’re the other team, that’s what you want — and we do as well. If you’re going to win on our side (of the conference), you’re going to have to beat their best pitcher.”

Batavia is currently a half-game up on second-place Amelia and Goshen and one game up on New Richmond and Western Brown. The title is up for grabs, but if the Bulldogs take care of business, the top spot is theirs.

While solid regular seasons have become the norm on Bulldog Place, the postseason has been a different story. Batavia hasn’t managed to win more than one postseason game in the last six seasons.

“The guys wrote down goals in a ‘players only’ meeting (before the season). All of them are still works in progress,” Carter said. “We broke them down to a game-by-game (process) and we’re working on those.

“As far as big picture, we want to win our side of the league. Doing that, you’ve beaten some really good teams and some really good pitchers — the kind you’re going to see in the tournament. If you look at our division, our sectional, every team has a pitcher like that, so you have to come in with the mindset of that’s what we’re going to see.

“Before the tournament draw (on May 1), we need to get some good wins; not just wins over teams you’re expected to beat. If you’re going to be a small school who wants to make some noise (in the tournament) you have to beat (good) teams.”

That task gets underway this week with big conference games on the schedule. The Bulldogs will wrap up their regular season on May 6 at Midland Fields versus Williamsburg.