Pointers motoring right along
There hasn’t been much of a state championship hangover for Van Buren, and from the looks of things, there won’t be.
The Pointers (11-2, 3-1 5A-West) haven’t skipped a beat since winning its first state championship last season, thanks to some key hitting up and down their line-up as well as clutch pitching from hurler Eli Gilreath. They’ve beaten Class 6A defending champion Rogers already and swept conference-foe Greenwood, which was also a Class 5A semifinalist a year ago, on Tuesday.
But Van Buren Coach Luke Weatherford feels there could be even better days ahead.
“I don’t feel like we’re playing our best, but we keep winning games,” he said. “There may be years where we play our best and not win so I’ll take these while we can get them.”
The Pointers have gotten a lot out of Gilreath. The senior is 4-1 with an earnedrun average of less than 1. In his lone loss, he gave up just one unearned run during a tournament game last week in Gulf Shores, Ala.
He even recorded a save during a 10-7 win over Greenwood in the first game of their doubleheader three days ago.
“It was a wild 10-7 game, and we were like let’s go ahead and bring him in to close it out,” Weatherford said of that game. “He goes out and closes it in like 14 or 15 pitches. And then he comes out in Game 2 and throws a complete game in 75 pitches. He’s been really, really good for us, just been really efficient.
“And that certainly helps because we’ve got a lot of guys that are confident swinging the bat right now. Anytime you can score runs, it kind of takes the pressure off of everything else. The pitcher doesn’t feel like he’s got to be perfect, and the defense knows they don’t have to make every single play.”
Yet, Van Buren is seemingly making all the right plays at the right time. The Pointers haven’t hit the meat of their conference schedule, but they’re sitting in a good spot going into it.
Also, three of their biggest league series against contenders Mountain Home, Vilonia and Russellville are all at home.
“Our goal is to first win the conference and get that No. 1 seed,” Weatherford said. “I think that’s something that’s attainable this year. There are a bunch of good teams in this conference, and it’s like that every year.
“But we feel like if we show up and play like we can, we should be right back in the mix to win it. That doubleheader next week against Mountain Home, who’s off to a 4-0 start in conference, will be huge for us. We’re right where we need to be, and hopefully, we can start stringing some more wins together.” well to losing, and they did. They came back in ready to work.”
Youth is plentiful for Fairview (6-3, 2-1), which won a league title for the first time in program history last year and is aiming to make it to the state tournament for the second season in a row. The Lady Cardinals are led by underclassmen at nearly every position, so Center expected her team to endure a few ups and downs, particularly early.
Two of the team’s three losses were to reigning Class 6A champion Bentonville and to Nashville, which was among the final four teams in Class 4A last season. But the expectations were and still are high for Fairview, especially with one of the state’s top pitchers in Haylee Monden on the mound nightly.
The junior left-hander, who was an all-state pick and a member of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette All-Arkansas Preps Underclassman team as a sophomore, has picked up where she left off, Center said. Even in Tuesday’s defeat to Magnolia, she registered 21 strikeouts.
“She’s still Haylee Monden,” Center explained. “She’s doing exactly what she’s supposed to do every night. Now we did go eight innings against Magnolia so there were 24 outs offered. But the ones that we didn’t get were balls that were hit over the fence.
“You have 21 strikeouts and still lose the game. … [Magnolia] did something right.”
Center feels the Lady Cardinals will still have moments where things won’t go as planned, but she’s confident they’ll continue to learn as the season progresses while remaining in contention to win another conference championship.
“This is a young group, but they’ve played a lot of ball,” Center said. “I expected them to do things sound, and they have. We’ve had some hiccups here and there, and we’ve fought through some injuries.
“I was also concerned with how they’d deal with pressure coming into the year. We’ve cracked a little bit, but we haven’t bled out so we’re doing OK.”