After winning the 2015 Class 1A state championship, it will be hard for the Dove Creek Bulldogs to top last season.<\/p>\n
But with the Bulldogs returning almost every player from the last year\u2019s squad, they\u2019ll certainly try.<\/p>\n
Their lone graduate was catcher Alex Ogas, but head coach Curtis Garver said that senior Kyle Schultz and sophomore Derek Kibel are prepared to suit up behind the plate to fill the void.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to move things around and get those guys some good reps there,\u201d he said. \u201cI have a couple of young kids that are looking at the catcher spot as well, so we have some options there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs also have options at pitcher, as they return four players with experience on the bump in Jordan Ernst, Colin Hobbs, Beau Hemphill and Schultz.<\/p>\n
Garver noted that all four pitchers play on the infield, so it\u2019s easy for him to shuffle them around.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur outfield is not bad either,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe\u2019re returning Case Baughman, who did really well in the outfield, and Derek (Kibel) can play in the outfield as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
With last year\u2019s championship lineup nearly completely intact, the Bulldogs have high expectations. But their lofty goals don\u2019t necessarily make them feel pressured.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t really feel any pressure, and I don\u2019t think the kids do either,\u201d said Garver. \u201cThey know they had to work pretty hard last year to get where they were, and it didn\u2019t come easy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garver noted that even though they won the state championship, the Bulldogs finished at .500 with a 12-12 record. He pointed to the Bulldogs\u2019 schedule, which includes games against bigger schools like Montezuma-Cortez, but said that they are scheduled for a reason.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of my main things is trying to get them to see those faster pitchers, those better pitchers that throw hard and can mix in a changeup and curveball,\u201d he explained. \u201cWe don\u2019t usually see it at the 1A level, so it\u2019s nice to see pitchers at those bigger schools like Cortez so we can get experience batting and take it and run with it when we play schools our size.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs began practice on Monday, February 29, and they kick of the 2016 season at Shiprock today at 3 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
looks to defend title<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5770],"tags":[80],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-106284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-high-school-sports","tag-dove-creek"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106284"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=106284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}