Fall Sports Preview: Senath-Hornersville baseball program set to begin baseball season with new head coach

Staff?Photo by Dustin Ward
Pictured is the 2012 Senath-Hornersville baseball team. Pictured left to right (front row): Cesar Moncada, Zach Johnson, Kasen Green, Roberto Rodriguez, Christian Blankenship, Blake?Swindle, Nano San Miguel and Brady Bibbs; (back row): Kyle?Moore, Jon Harris, Luis Guerra, Ricardo Salas, Shane Crawford, Austin Autry, Joel Sawyer, and D.J. Kempf.

SENATH, Mo. - For the first time since 1995 the Senath-Hornersville baseball program is entering its fall season with a new head coach.

Jamie Johnson, who has coached Dunklin County Legion for the last decade and served as an assistant baseball coach at Senath-Hornersville for the last five years, will take over for long-time coach Randy Smith this fall.

Smith served as head baseball coach at Senath-Hornersville from 1995 to 2012 and will be the new head baseball coach at Blytheville, Ark., this season.

Staff Photo by Dustin Ward
Dunklin County coach Jamie Johnson (pictured) will be the new head baseball coach at Senath-Hornersville this fall.

"I'm really excited about the opportunity," Johnson said. "I was here with Coach Smith for five years and enjoyed every year I was with him. I have a great, young bunch of kids to work with this season.

"Who knows what their potential is,"? Johnson continued. "There are just so many that can do so many things. They are going to be a fun bunch to coach."

Johnson was an all-state baseball player at Senath-Hornersville his junior and senior seasons of high school in 1991 and 1992. He won a state title as the head coach at Dunklin County Legion in 2000. He also served as head baseball coach at North Pemiscot for four seasons and coached North Pemiscot to a district championship in 2004.

"It's special to come here and get to coach at the high school you graduated from," Johnson said. "You just want to try to give some of that back to these guys and get back to the traditions we are used to at Senath-Hornersville. It's a pretty high winning tradition here and we just want to do the best we can and play great baseball. That's what we are looking forward to this fall."

Senath-Hornersville has had unprecedented success on the baseball diamond over the years. It has advanced to the state baseball playoffs 17 times. It placed fourth in Missouri in 1991, won a state title in 1994 and placed third in 1998.

Senath-Hornersville will try to add to that tradition this season after a strong finish to its summer season.

"Our younger bunch placed first in the junior varsity division and our older bunch ended up second to Neelyville at the end-of-summer tournament," Johnson said. "Neelyville has a good club and we competed. I just want to see us compete and play a higher level of baseball."

Eight of the 16 players on the Senath-Hornersville fall roster are freshmen.

Senath-Hornersville has three seniors -D.J. Kempf, Nano San Miguel and Luis Guerra.

"Coming in here this fall we are doing a great deal of teaching," Johnson said. "We've got a young team and we are trying to implement our style of baseball and what it takes to play at the high school level. Some of these guys have never played high school baseball. Not taking anything away from their talent, but there are certain things we do that they may not do at the junior high level. We are just trying to get them more accustomed to our practices and prepare them for games."

Senath-Hornersville is set to open its season Aug. 23 when it travels to Bernie for a 4:30 p.m. game.

"I'm excited and ready for it," Lions' outfielder Guerra said. "Bernie is a pretty good team and we will be out there ready to play."

Kempf, who will play infield for the Lions this season, is anxiously awaiting head-to-head games with two teams.

"Twin Rivers and South Pemiscot," Kempf said. "That's the two teams we want to beat no matter what. We've always had a long rivalry with South Pemiscot and Twin Rivers has been good the last couple of seasons. We've played pretty close games against those teams almost every time."

Miguel, who will handle some of the catching duties behind the plate, says the pitching depth has improved.

"We've created a lot of pitchers," Miguel said. "We've got a couple of guys who weren't pitching a few years ago that are pretty effective."

Senath-Hornersville will be without the services of Joel Sawyer at the start of the season. Sawyer, who pitched on the Dunklin County Legion team this summer, injured his wrist in practice.

"We've still got work to do, but we will get better," Guerra said. "We lost our best outfielder Joel Sawyer to an injury.

"I'd like to win the district and even state if we can" Guerra continued. "We haven't won anything since I was a freshman and it would feel pretty good to go out on a good note."

Senath-Hornersville opens its fall season with four straight road games.

Its home opener is Aug. 31 at 4:30 p.m. against Delta C-7.

The Senath-Hornersville baseball team will also play in an alumni game against Lions' graduates Sept. 1 at 3 p.m.

"We've made some improvements to the field this fall and more improvements are coming," Johnson said. "We want to thank Mr. Wood and the school board for allowing us to do certain things out there that have been needed to be done for a while. The administration has been great to work with and work for. They are going to try to push this program and support it. You cannot ask for anything more than that from your administration.

"I hope we get a good fan base," Johnson continued. "We want to invite parents and teachers to watch the games. The kids really enjoy the support."

2012 Baseball Schedule

Date	Team	Location	Time
8/23	Bernie	Away	4:30 p.m.
8/24	Clarkton	Away	4:30 p.m.
8/28	Campbell	Away	4:30 p.m.
8/30	Holcomb	Away	4:30 p.m.
8/31	Delta C-7	Home	4:30 p.m.
9/4	Cooter	Home	4 p.m.
9/6	Southland	Away	4:30 p.m.
9/7	Senath-H'ville Tourney	Home	3:30 p.m.
9/10	Holcomb	Home	4:30 p.m.
9/13	North Pemiscot	Away	4:30 p.m.
9/14	South Pem. Tourney	Away	3:30 p.m.
9/17	Clarkton	Away	4:30 p.m.
9/18	Twin Rivers	TRCC	4 p.m.
9/20	North Pemiscot	Home	4:30 p.m.
9/21	Neelyville	Away	4:30 p.m.
9/24	Start of Fall Tourney	Higher?Seed	TBA

Source: http://www.dddnews.com/story/1885154.html

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