Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Growth During 2015 Season
LINCOLN — Justin Bounds’ inaugural season as Lincoln’s head baseball coach was challenging on all fronts yet he makes no excuses for Lincoln’s 5-14 finish.
In fairness to Bounds and the Wolves, they were dealing with factors beyond their control. Lincoln graduated a deep 2014 senior class featuring six fulltime players plus lost the services of foreign-exchange student Emilio Marrufo and transfer Drew Harris, both juniors who went to school elsewhere for their senior seasons. Bounds had to replace eight starters, no easy task for any coach.
“Our final record was 5-14. Obviously it was not the year we expect to have at Lincoln and I take full responsibility for it.,” Bounds said. “This year was a big learning experience for me as a first year head coach. I tried to break down the game into the simplest of fundamentals and work on those really hard.”
Bounds also changed a lot of terminology and taught skills that he discovered some kids had never worked on. Three Lincoln players, all seniors: Cord McCaslin, Kaleb Ayers and Lane Maddox; earned All-Conference recognition and team awards. McCaslin received Lincoln’s golden- glove defensive award with Ayers tabbed for the Wolves’ Cy Young award and Maddox taking the Silver- Slugger offensive award from the program.
“As the year progressed we got better,” Bounds said, “I’ve talked to different coaches and every school goes through highs and lows. You just got to keep doing what is right.”
At season’s end with a first- round 10- 4 loss to Berryville at the district tournament, Bounds had already decided to change a few things to make the team better for next year and looking ahead to next year knows he will have to replace those three valuable seniors: Ayers, Maddox and McCaslin, whom he admits were a big part of the Wolves’ lineup this year.
“They were very key in the coaching transition process this year. They were three guys I leaned on a lot and they will be missed,” Bounds said.
In the off-season, Bounds hasn’t strayed too far away from baseball. With school out, he has time to help coach his son Easton’s league team and is keeping a close watch on the other Lincoln team players to get a better feel of what those kids can do next year as ninth-graders coming into the Lincoln baseball program.