By Matt Browning
The Salina South baseball team had one of its best seasons in recent memory last season as the Cougars took fourth at the 5A Tournament.
With many of those players graduated, South faces an uphill battle to get back to Eck Stadium in Wichita, but head coach Kris Meis said his team embraces the challenge of getting better of the course of the season.
“The expectations for this season are the same as any other,” Meis said. “Our goal is to be a better team on May 20 (Regionals) then we are on March 3. The goal is to make it to Wichita every year regardless of our team’s talent level.”
The Cougars do return three important players from last season.
“We return three starters from last year’s state fourth place finish,” Meis said. “Jace Humphrey will be our top arm, play left field when not pitching and hit in the middle of our lineup. The other two starters are third baseman Aidan Speilman and designated hitter Landon Putman.”
Shutting out the outside noise and focusing on growth and improvement within the program is what Meis tells his team. That philosophy has the greatest chance at success.
“As always, we define the success of our season on the growth of our players both on and off the field,” Meis said. “We control what we can control and that is ourselves. We cannot control the team in the other dugout so the plan is to play our best and see what happens.”
