Baseball hopes to make it all the way

More stories from Caitlin Cross

After being eliminated in the 2015 Elite Eight last season, the varsity baseball team hopes to make it even further than their current fifth-place state rank.

The team is currently ranked fifth in the state, but the boys are up against tough teams this season such as Walton, Pope and Parkview. Etowah lost to all three teams last year and Parkview was the State Champion.

“We have a tough schedule. Lots of holes to fill,” Mike Foley, varsity coach, said.

Every year the baseball team changes up how they practice and about two hours each day are spent practicing. When raining, players practice inside for an hour. Practices are divided up into groups and each group focuses on a certain aspect of the game to improve on and then the groups switch.

Etowah’s baseball team usually has great pitchers every year and this year is no different, but Coach Foley wants to make sure that there are reliable hitters on the field as well.

Four seniors have already signed and committed to a college and two more are signing and committing to colleges in the first weekend of February. Sawyer Gibson committed to Mercer University, Jake Johnston committed to Southern University, Tyler Adams and Kyle Brady committed to Lincoln Memorial College, Bryce O’Brien committed to Chattahoochee Valley Community College and Brian Peet committed to West Georgia University.

So far this season the baseball team lost to Grayson high school 3-0 and beat Sequoyah 1-0.