Malad Baseball State Champions Defend their title

This year, the Malad High School Baseball team is defending their State Championship title.
“It’s tough to be the State Champions because every one is shooting at you,” said Dennis Evans, Varsity’s head coach.
Seven senior baseball players graduated last year including six varsity starters — Skyler Thorpe, pitcher; Bubba Crump, outfielder; Jeremy McClellan, center fielder; Tyrell Hubbard, shortstop; Cody Hess, third baseman; Chase Nieffenegger, outfielder and Ruben Ramirez, junior varsity right fielder.
“Last year’s seniors were exceptional athletes but, more importantly, exceptional young men who set a great example for the younger players,” said Bobby Green, Varsity’s assistant coach. “I don’t think the team has missed a beat as these younger players have come up in a good JV system and learned from the graduating seniors as well.”
“We are a really young team and a lot of the players haven’t normally batted against these older pitchers but we’re doing well,” said Bracken Gibbs, senior pitcher. “We’ve all played together since we were younger and we really haven’t missed a beat.”
The team lost five games so far this season. All losses were to higher districts. Malad played two teams from their district and won both games.
“Last year we had only three losses at this point but we didn’t lose any after that,” Evans said.
To help defend their state title, the team is working harder on hitting and defense.
“Our defense has been letting us down,” Evans said. “In practices we’ve tried to focus more on our weaknesses. Last year we didn’t have very many...we’re working harder on getting better.”
Baseball 2A District Championships are scheduled for May 2 and May 5. Once the district’s first and second place have been awarded they are sent to play in the State Championship. State is in Orophino, Idaho this year on May 18 and 19.
“Our goal every year is a State Championship,” Green said. “We have high hopes for this team.”
“I think we’ll do just fine at State,” Gibbs said. “We’ve already played a lot of the teams that we’ll see at state and we played really well against them.”