The Capital City Cavaliers are ready to host their full home schedule.
Capital City’s baseball field now has dugouts and a scoreboard, leaving the Cavaliers excited to play at home instead of having most of their home games being played at Vivion Field.
“It’s exciting, we’re looking forward to it,” Capital City baseball coach Brett Skinner said. “Dugouts are complete, we’ve got restrooms and a little team room, a scoreboard. The kids are excited, we’re excited to be able to play on campus and hopefully we’re going to have a successful season for our first one here.”
Thus far, the Cavaliers have had to spend most of their practice time inside because of weather. But that hasn’t dampened Skinner’s thoughts about the level the team is at heading into the season.
“We’ve had a lot of competition, we’ve got a big senior class,” Skinner said. “We’ve got nine seniors, that’s been awesome, the leadership has been good. … When we have gotten outside, we’ve kind of got a lot to get done, but so far, I’m pretty pleased with where we’re at.”
Part of the excitement about the team comes from the amount of pitchers Skinner predicts will get innings early in the season. He said junior Brock Miles, sophomore Blake Holtmeyer, seniors Thomas Jennings and Hayden Carroll and junior Brian Pace will take the majority of the starts.
Coming out of the bullpen will be a combination of juniors Kaiden Menning and Zach Brown and senior Colin Flaherty, with freshmen Shea Clark and Colten Haskell working to earn innings throughout the season.
“We have some other younger guys too, that if they start throwing really well could possibly see some innings by the end of it,” Skinner said. “But right now, those are the 10 guys.”
After playing outfield last season, the Cavaliers are converting senior Justin Sullens to a catcher after losing last year’s starting catcher to transfer.
“He’s done a good job with the transition so far,” Skinner said “And we’ll continue to develop him there and we’re excited. He’s an athlete and he works hard and we think he’ll do a good job.”
In the infield, seniors Jamisen Schwarzer, Ben Turner and Bryson Holtmeyer will patrol first base.
“We expect those three to produce offensively for us as well,” Skinner said. “That’ll be a competition going on over there.”
Miles will be the Cavaliers’ main shortstop, with junior Noah Nicklas manning second base, unless Miles is on the mound, in which case Nicklas will move to short and freshman Luke Skinner will take the time at second.
On the hot corner, Turner and Carroll will split time at third base.
Skinner said four outfielders have jumped out, and since all four also pitch, all will get meaningful time in games.
He said senior Caydin Engelbrecht, Blake Holtmeyer, Jennings and Brown will be the main players in the outfield.
Engelbrecht will also take a spot at or near the top of the lineup with Nicklas, while Miles and Sullen will likely take the regular at-bats in the Nos. 3 and 4 spots. Skinner said he is hopeful a combination of Turner, Schwarzer and Carroll can man the middle of the lineup with the remaining starters getting at-bats near the bottom of the order.
“All guys who can swing it,” Skinner said. “If we can get rolling, our lineup one through nine, I feel very confident. We just got to get there.”
While the lineup is full of returning starters, Skinner said the strength of the team will be the pitching and defense, with a focus on the 10 pitchers throwing strikes while not overpowering opposing hitters.
“We’ve got quite a few guys who can throw strikes and mix it up and our defense behind them, I think, is going to play very well,” Skinner said. “We should be in a lot of games. Offensively, we’re gonna have to play some small ball and manufacture some runs.”
That pitching and small ball will get to work today when the Cavaliers take on Fatima for a rescheduled doubleheader starting at 4:30 p.m. in Westphalia. Capital City was originally scheduled to play a split doubleheader against Fatima and Boonville, but when it was rescheduled to today, Boonville decided not to make the trip.
The Cavaliers will open the home schedule at 5 p.m. Friday when they host Fort Zumwalt East.
The Cavaliers will also get to showcase their facilities during the Jays Baseball Classic on April 6-8. The Cavaliers will travel to Florida for a spring break tournament and will take part in the River City Festival on April 28-29 in Kansas.
Capital City will play in Class 5 District 5 this season alongside local rivals Helias and Jefferson City, as well as Pacific, Rolla, St. Francis Borgia, Union and Washington.
“It’s a pretty good schedule,” Skinner said. “It’s not an easy one, that’s for sure. Obviously, we’re in one of the toughest baseball conferences in the state. So it ought to be interesting, for sure.”