The Harmony Grove Cardinals baseball team will look to bounce back against Genoa after a loss to Mayflower on March 19.
Harmony Grove is using the matchup, along with other spring break games, to prepare for conference play.
“We’ve been working hard all spring. We’ve got a great collection of young guys and old guys that really mesh well together. We had a bunch of incoming freshmen this season. We have lots of older leadership that’s been around, and we’ve been just trying to prepare and get ready for our conference season. We’ve been using this spring break tournament as a chance to really polish some things up before we head into big-time conference play in April,” Coach Brandon Mynhier said.
The Cardinals have used spring break to stay sharp ahead of the game.
“It’s really important. We started conference play right before spring break, and we will finish conference play through April. Spring break is right in the middle of our season. It’s kind of a week off, but I try not to take that full week off. I tried to make sure we have enough reps in those three games during spring break so that we can stay relevant; that way, we don’t take a week off of hitting and a week off of fielding. I’m trying to give them Friday through Tuesday. We’ll do a short practice on Wednesday just to shake the rust off. Then we’ll play games Thursday, Friday, and Saturday just to compete, get out there and throw some innings, and get back on it,” Mynhier said.
Mynhier said the team’s message remains consistent heading into conference play.
“That we’re never out. There’s always a chance. We’re gonna go hard, and we’re gonna try to win every chance that we get. Unfortunately, we did drop our first one the other day against Mayflower in a great game; both teams played great. Unfortunately, sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. So even though we dropped our first game, there’s always an opportunity to make up ground later, there’s always great opportunities in the playoffs, and we’re just gonna keep on rolling,” he said.
Senior Dax Hammett is a player to watch for Harmony Grove.
“Our best player is Dax Hammett. He is a senior this year, left-handed pitcher. He lives anywhere from 88 to 92 miles per hour on the fastball on the mound with a great off-speed stuff to go with it. He’s a senior committed to Texas Tech. He hit a walk-off home run earlier in the season for us; he’s just a guy who can do it all the time, and then he’s a great leader for our younger guys on the team. So he’s our guy to watch right now,” Mynhier said. “It’s amazing to see the things he does. He struck out 17 batters the other day in the game. It’s just that the things he does are amazing. So we’re glad to have him.”
Harmony Grove is scheduled to play Genoa at 1:30 p.m. today at Maumelle.