The Red Bank Lions baseball team recorded five wins and had lost its spirit a bit during the 2022 season as they also finished the district at just 2-9 as well.
Going through that adversity could hinder any spirit but the Lions were poised and determined to make 2023 a much different season.
Captains Aiden Porter and Jake Brune wanted to make sure they left a mark within this program and help restore its spirit.
However, the path to success is rarely a straight shot, it's generally paved with potholes, speed bumps, and hazards which is precisely what this Lions team dealt with early on as they came out of the gates sputtering losing six games in a row to begin their season.
Junior Cordell Howard is the lead-off hitter for this team and he sees himself as the tone-setter but he said last year and the beginning of this year were very difficult...
"Last year we just couldn't pick each other's spirits up as much. One got down and then we all got down... We would make an error and then it would lead to another error." Howard continued, "We were 0-6 at the beginning of the season and we came back... That's special, that's something where we know we changed the culture."
Change the culture they did, from five wins in 2022 to almost tripling that win total with 14 wins in 2023.
A couple of the standouts on this team include...
Logan Denton - Junior
- 76 Strikeouts and a 1.655 ERA
- .308 AVG 13 doubles
- Named 1st team All-District
Cordell Howard - Junior
- 19 stolen bases and the lead-off hitter/tone-setter
Aiden Porter - Senior
- Co-Captain
- Mr. Do it all for this team playing many different positions during his time within the program
Jake Brune - Senior
- Committed to Roane State Community College on Wednesday
- .303 AVG
- .292 ERA
- One of our 2 Captains. (Other was Aiden Porter)
- Named 1st team All-District
Here are a couple of other impressive team statistics from one of their coaches, Matt Roberson who really helped in aiding the turnaround of this program as well...
- 1 game shy from the district championship. Held a 6-0 lead in that game but ran out of pitching due to it being our 4th game in as many days.
- Beat East Hamilton on a walk-off home run Friday night. (Possibly the first time in school history we've beat East Hamilton)
- hit .264 as a team
- 4.03 ERA as a team
- Beat Central and Hixson for the first time during the senior's career.
What a truly outstanding turnaround for this Red Bank Lion's squad and we can't wait to see how they continue to learn, grow, and develop not only as baseball players but as a program as well.
If you'd like to hear the conversation with the Red Bank Lions baseball team from Inside High School Sports you can check it out here.