Kendrick baseball showing improvement in numbers, results

When baseball coach Michael Peek arrived at Kendrick 12 years ago, his biggest challenge was finding players who wanted to come out for baseball. It was so difficult, he said, that a large portion of the student body didn’t even know the school had a team.

“It’s not the first thing people think of at Kendrick,” he said.

It’s understandable. The baseball team hasn’t made a playoff appearance since 1983 and hasn’t been able to muster a whole lot of success over Peek’s 12 years at the school. Slowly but surely, though, the Cherokees are trying to change the narrative.

The team improved from six wins in 2014 to 11 a year ago. Now, with nearly a month left to play in the regular season, Kendrick is 8-9 overall and 5-5 in Region 2-3A play. It is just two games back of Jordan for the fourth and final playoff spot out of the region, and the idea of a postseason appearance is very much on the minds of the players.

“Oh, we’re going to the playoffs,” one joked during practice.

Peek was more subdued.

“That’s the plan,” he said. “That’s the plan. We’re going to keep working hard, do what we’ve been doing and try to be in every game. We’ll see what happens at the end of April.”

The simple fact that Peek doesn’t have to stretch the truth to suggest his team has a chance at the playoffs is evidence of the progress. There are 24 players on the team’s roster, providing the kind of depth the team hasn’t possessed in years.

Senior Brady Pitts could remember back to his freshman year, a time when the Cherokees could barely field an entire team.

“One year, we only had 11 people,” he said. “If anyone got hurt, we’d be struggling. My freshman and sophomore year, we were only winning 2-3 games at the most. We’ve already won two or three times that many.”

Winning has made it more fun, but it’s hard which had a bigger impact on the other — winning improving the numbers on the team, or vice versa. In either case, the players are enjoying being a part of the team, and it shows on game days.

“It gives them the opportunity to learn the game, to practice and put the time in,” Peek said. “So, they’ve gotten better over time, and it’s mor fun for these guys. They’re having fun. They weren’t here years ago, so they don’t know anything about what the record used to be. All that matters to them is right now, and they’re enjoying it.”

It’s become more of a family, junior Anthony Garrett said. Success has bred success, and now they want to see each other accomplish more and more as time goes along.

“We’re playing not just like a team, but like a family,” he said. “Everybody wants the best for everyone else out here.”

They know they haven’t accomplished much yet. They’ve won more than eight games in a year, having notched 11 last season. The improvement they’ve shown could go out the door if they fail to maintain their progress throughout the final month of the season.

But they’re alive, and that’s all the Cherokees could ask for at this point in the year.

“We’re just chasing the playoffs,” Pitts said. “That’s all we want. That would bring so much to this team. Just going to the playoffs.”

This story was originally published March 28, 2016 at 6:51 PM with the headline "Kendrick baseball showing improvement in numbers, results."