Cairo ready for another baseball championship

By Kris Childs

Spring baseball season is here and the Cairo Bearcats are ready to go after another district championship.

In a recent interview with Cairo’s head coach Jeff Schleicher, he stated that he feels his team is the team to beat in the district this spring.

“We’ve won four out of the last five,” said Schleicher. “Last year was the only year we haven’t won in the last five years. The team that beat us last year was Bevier and then in the fall we spread them. So I would say that makes us the favorite.”

Coach Schleicher explained his main focus this season will be on throwing strikes and quality defense.

“On this level and pretty much every other level, pitching and defense wins and if we throw strikes our pitching will be fine. The more they trust their defense the better off they’ll be so pitching and defense are key… Defensively I believe we’re seven or eight deep. That’s big for Class 1 baseball. That’s probably better than we’ve been in several years.”

Schleicher will be turning to juniors Andy Gravitt and Andy Prather to be their offensive leaders this season. Gravitt batted a career best .486 last fall and Andy Prather has hit above .300 for the past three seasons. Coach also stated he expects freshman Aaron Barratt to contribute a lot offensively.

“Barratt can run and has a lot of baseball experience,” said Schleicher.

Cairo is returning five starters from last season, after finishing 4-9 and just falling short of defending their district championship. Schleicher feels that the success of this season will depend on mental preparation.

Schleicher said “Mentally, Juniors need to mature. That’s the difference of us being really good or not really good.”

Cairo will begin their season next Tuesday at home when they play Brunswick at 5 p.m.