Menu
Holcomb baseball gear up for success in fall season
HOLCOMB, Mo. - Head coach Gary Dubar and his Holcomb Hornets have been playing non-stop baseball since March.
According to Dubar, they are entering this fall season with the same mentality they had in the spring and during summer ball. They want to win.
One difference he has spotted in his players compared to previous fall seasons is their desire to be present and their desire to succeed.
“It seems like we want to be here,” Dubar said. “Being at a small school, you have fall baseball, then you share the same kids with basketball and then you have spring and summer baseball and you come right back into fall baseball. They don’t really get much of a break.”
According to Dubar, a lot of times he notices there is less motivation in the fall for his players.
This year, Dubar has spotted a lot of growth among his players as they head into the fall baseball season.
“Everybody seems to be having a good time,” Dubar said. “We’ve got a group of guys that are going to be really good. There was a lot of growth over the summer. We are taking a lot of steps in the right direction.”
In 2021, the Hornets were one of the best teams in the Tri-County conference. They recorded a 20-7 record in the Spring and earned fourth place at the MSHSAA State Baseball Championships. In the Fall of 2021, they finished with a 15-6 winning record.
Since then, even though they are still a competitive team during the spring months, the Hornets have struggled to show their best potential in the fall.
In the Fall of 2022, the team went 3-16. However, they bounced back to a 14-9 record in the Spring of 2023 as well as qualify for the semi-finals at the district tournament.
The next school followed a similar pattern, as the Hornets went 6-14 in the fall of 2023.
This past Spring, Holcomb baseball fell to a 11-13 showing. Dubar said the team just fell apart in the second half of the season.
“We started out really good,”Dubar said. “We were 10-3 and then we hit some kind of weird, crazy slump where we couldn’t beat anybody.”
Now, with an extra fire for redemption from the Spring and a rolling start from the Summer, the team is excited to turn things back around this Fall.
Dubar will be returning his entire roster from the spring except for one senior who graduated in May.
Along with returning all but one player from the Spring roster, Dubar adds three freshmen to the team this season.
He said he looks to the upperclassmen and returns to help lead this team to a better fall season.
“We got freshmen coming in that haven’t really been coached hard before,” Dubar said. “They’re a little nervous but they are getting better everyday. They are quietly trying to figure things out. We got guys stepping up as leaders. Our seniors are very vocal as leaders, but our junior class speak a lot. The two seniors I have now lead by example and then my juniors lead with words. More guys are stepping up into leadership roles, which is nice.”
Noah Kenner and Christian Lewis will be the two seniors returning this season.
After the summer season, Kenner sees a lot of potential for the Fall months.
“If we can get through these long practices together and gel together as a team, we can be a very good team.” Kenner said. “I see us being a very competitive team.”