Holcomb face Malden Green Wave in summer baseball game

Noah Kenner winds up for a fast ball at the mound for Holcomb. Photo by Kaelin Triggs, Delta Dunklin democrat.

HOLCOMB, Mo. - Two Dunklin County baseball teams went head-to-head on Tuesday.

The Holcomb Hornets showed a little bit of their dominance against the Malden Green Wave.

Despite Malden's performance, head coach Tim Harmon said these off-season competitions aren’t focused on winning. Rather, he wants his players and coaching staff to focus on what can be fixed to win in the spring where it matters.

“We’re rebuilding right now,” Harmon said. “We’re very young with about nine freshmen and a lot of underclassmen. We are just working on little things they need to do a little better. Right now, I just want to see them compete.”

Harmon’s team is made up of a lot of three sport athletes. More than half of his team this summer also participate in summer workouts in the morning for football, conditioning in the afternoon for basketball and then have evening games for baseball.

Damien Annesser led the defense for Malden as the starting pitcher. Photo by Kaelin Triggs, Delta Dunklin Democrat.

According to Harmon, by game time, his players are just tired.

“There’s a lot of wear and tear on these kids,” Harmon said. “I’m proud of them for being at all three (sports) all the time and putting in that kind of effort.”

This summer for baseball has been up and down for both teams. Each squad has had their share of rain delays and cancellations along with teams backing out of competition due to not having enough players available during the summer months. 

Holcomb senior Noah Kenner led the Hornets from the mound on Tuesday. Despite these difficulties faced in the off-season, Kenner said this summer gives him confidence in how his team will compete in the fall and spring,

“We don’t even have our full team,” Kenner said. “We are missing some very key players. Once we get everyone here and get them through practices and everything we can gel together as a team. I think we’ll be a very good and very competitive team.”

After a few really solid defensive innings along with a good showings at the plate, Holcomb is pretty confident in their execution on Tuesday.

Out of all of their games this summer, Kenner believes this was their best performance.

“Everyone played their position very well,” Kenner said. “We did a really good job reading fly balls today. Everyone looked good. This was one of our better hitting games this summer.”

Keaton Cunningham of Holcomb rounds third base to run home and score for Holcomb. Photo by Kaelin Triggs, Delta Dunklin Democrat.

During the off-season competition, no one is keeping stats or score. According to Harmon, it's just a scrimmage for the teams to get reps and face actual competition.

Offensively, Harmon said Malden was able to run the bases pretty well when the team got the ball in play. However, he looks to work more on limiting defensive errors after this match up.

“We scored from third a couple times,” Harmon said. “We had some good reads and were able to score but we had a few mistakes in the field. Not being in the right spot or covering the right spot. If nothing, every time the ball is in play, you got somewhere to be. Everybody on the field has somewhere to be.”

Harmon also said they allowed too many walks against Holcomb. 

The Green Wave, with such a young roster, have a freshman pitcher this summer and one still in junior high. Damien Annesser started for Malden on Tuesday. He led the defensive display before moving to first base and was relieved by Zackary White.

“Both of them are left-handed pitchers,” Harmon said. ‘They both have high upsides being left-handed and they both throw the ball decently. They just gotta work on a little bit of control.”

For Holcomb, the rest of the summer and fall season will be about continuing momentum and implementing their key players.

Harmon’s focus for Malden is improvement each day and every game. He said he has seen a lot of improvement this summer.

“We’re not on them really hard right now,” Harmon said. “We ‘re just watching what they can do and putting a lot of guys on the mound and seeing if they can throw strikes and challenge hitters. We are just getting better one game at a time.”