Baseball Begins

T.J. Morgan, Freelance Sports Reporter

Baseball season began this past week for Metcalfe County. There is a lot of buzz around first-year Coach Daniel Garrett’s young Hornet lineup. Coach Garrett starts four freshmen, Maddux Garrett, Kruz Tucker, Brackston Pennington, and Ayden Harrison, alongside 8^th grader Chance Garrett. The Hornets also return the big bats of seniors Jax Allen, Cole Shive, Kevin Graham, and Jake Love, along with Sophomore Collin Shive to their lineup.

The Hornets traveled to Green County Tuesday to start the season on the road. Senior Kevin Graham would get the Opening Day nod on the bump for Metcalfe. As expected, with a long lineage of power bats in their program’s history, the Dragons would once again prove to be a formidable foe. While Kevin would navigate the strike zone well, Green County would connect early and often, and the young defense behind the Hornet Ace would still be looking to establish its footing for the season. The Hornets would fall 0-9 to the Dragons, but Metcalfe would show glimpses of where their talent will eventually lead them.

Metcalfe hosted their first home game of the season Thursday against the Edmonson County Wildcats. Freshman Maddux Garrett made his season debut on the mound for the Hornets. Metcalfe would compete early, but once again struggle defensively as they try to find their place on a new stage. While the Wildcat bats would hang 7 runs on young Maddux, none of the 7 would be earned, and even though the lineup would plate 14 runs total against the Hornet staff, only 4 that crossed would score as earned. Metcalfe would ultimately fall, 3-14 against Edmonson.

Friday was a scheduled home game for the Hornets, but because of heavy rain Thursday night into Friday, the matchup was moved to Campbellsville’s turf field. The Hornets would battle for most of the evening behind a solid pitching performance by Collin Shive, but eventually, lose the game 0-10.