New Madrid County aiming for league title

sports@standard-democrat.com

PORTAGEVILLE -- With a mix of some old and new faces in New Madrid County's Senior Babe Ruth team lineup, head coach Kevin Lyons said his team has one particular goal heading into the season.

"We want to win our league," Lyons said. "We have numerous games outside the league that are basically to get us ready for the regular season.

"Our goal is to win the regular season and we want to win it out right."

Some of the big names returning from last year include former Risco standout and current Crowley Ridge College player Ross Carter along with 2011 Tri-County All-Conference first team member Chris Pavy who is also from Risco.

Other returning veterans include Mason Kellams and Hunter Ivie from Portageville along with Gabe Smith from New Madrid County Central.

They will be joined new blood such as Caden Robbins from Portageville, Owen Flowers from Dexter and Matt Cummins from Risco.

"We have the Robbins kid from Portageville playing us which is going help us hopefully quite a bit with his bat," Lyons said. "In Robbins we'll have somebody to cover up Carter this year (in the batting order)."

Lyons said that while he expects his team to swing the bats well just like last season, one thing he expects to see a marked improvement in is the pitching department.

After struggling with a relatively thin staff last year, New Madrid County has many of the same arms back with another year under their belt, including Chris and Jordon Pavy from Risco who both helped anchor the Tigers' high school staff.

"We were a little bit light in pitching last year," Lyons said. "But we have some of the kids who didn't throw a whole lot last year that now have a year under their belt and I'm expecting big things out of them.

"We should be about six or seven deep on pitching at least so I think we'll be all right."

After opening the season losing both halves of a double header to Cape's Senior Legion squad last Thursday 12-2 and 8-6 respectively, New Madrid County will play its second doubleheader of the season tonight at Portageville against Jackson starting at 6 p.m.