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Senior Cole Abshire signals with the Catcher on what type of pitch he should throw. Abshire helped his team win the game against Wakefield with his pitching performance.

After a very strong 4-0 start to the season, the Cougar baseball team has hit a bit of a rough patch and is now at 7-9. To add to some of the frustration, they have lost the pitching ability of one of their experienced starters, senior Carson Lindsey.

Lindsey has been one of the anchors of the pitching rotation so far for the team, the Cougars earned a 6-3 record while Lindsey was in the rotation, and he certainly doesn’t like the idea of not being able to pitch in his senior season.

“I don’t feel good about not being able to pitch anymore. It hurts the team, and it’s just not a good situation,” Lindsey said.

Losing Lindsey’s experience on the mound will be a setback, but the team shows no signs of giving up.

“Losing Carson has really instilled in everyone the ‘next man up’ mentality, and we are all ready for the next man to step in and do the job,” senior pitcher Kyle Brewer said.

Brewer has two wins from the mound this season.

Depth at the pitching position was a strength going into this season for the squad with a number of seniors that can get the job done.

“I think we have a good enough group of pitchers right now that we can still get good starts from quality pitching. We have good guys coming in from the bullpen, but we just need to have confidence in everyone, and everyone needs to perform,” Brewer said.

With a new coach and a lot of experience, mixed with some young talent, the Cougars were looking for a comeback season after last year’s disappointing results.

“We have definitely underachieved. There was one point where we were 6-4 where we should have been 8-2, just because a few plays didn’t go our way. There is still plenty of time to turn it around,” Brewer said.

Since the brief undefeated start to their season, the baseball team has lost eight games by three runs or less. Coming into the home stretch of the season, the boys are confident they can find wins.

“I think we can turn it around, but we just have to score more runs and play better than the other teams and get more wins,” Lindsey said.

Losing a lot of close games in a short span is hard for any team; however, Brewer is optimistic about getting back on the front foot.

Brewer said, “I think we really just need one good win to get us back on track. I think we have kind of forgotten how to win, and once we get back on our win streak we can get our season back on track and make the playoffs.”

The Cougars may have found that win April 13, defeating Enloe 11-1. They play next Friday, April 15 against Broughton.