The 2023 Highland Community College Baseball team is off to one of the best starts in program history as their record stands at 5-2. Highland begun the season by winning their season opener on the road vs. Ottawa University by the score of 16-6 on February 6th. After winter weather canceled a scheduled trip to Eastern Oklahoma State College Highland picked up a road double header at Benedictine College winning both games 15-1 and 6-0 respectfully. Last weekend the Scotties traveled to nearby Parkville, MO to face Metropolitan Community College - Maple Woods and Ellsworth Community College. After four extremely competitive games the Scotties came away with a split on the weekend winning both games vs. Ellsworth and suffering two very close losses to Metro - Maple Woods.
After the weekend, Head Coach
Landon Hay shared his thoughts on the start of the season, "We're incredibly proud of the way we have started this year, we have taken care of business in games we were supposed to and played two very competitive teams this past weekend, coming away with two wins. If we can tighten up a few things we could very easily be 7-0 right now. The boys feel good and are working hard to prepare for the HCC invitational this weekend which will provide another good test for us as we quickly move towards the start of conference play."
Top Performers:
Several Scotties are off to hot starts this year and will certainly be exciting names to follow for the rest of the season.
Filip Sarota - The right-handed hitting sophomore from Warsaw, Poland is hitting .524 so far this season with 2 home runs, 3 doubles and 15 runs batted in. Sarota's current slugging percentage sits at 1.048 which is 2
nd in the Jayhawk conference.
Dylan Shepherd - Shepherd, a freshman catcher from Toronto, Canada is currently hitting .556 with 2 doubles and 6 RBI.
Kyle McConachie - A freshman from Columbia, Il, McConachie is hitting .474 with 5 runs batted in and 9 runs scored. Kyle has also stolen 5 bases so far this season.
Zach Knowlton - Patrolling center field for Highland, Knowlton, a freshman from Spring Hill, KS has a perfect 1.000 field percentage so far this year to go with .364 batting average and an on base percentage of .500 in the leadoff spot for the Scotties.
Connor Pruyser - The sophomore from Silver Lake, KS leads the way for the Scotties on the mound so far. In 2 starts, Pruyser is 2-0 with 8 innings pitched and an earned run average under 1.00.
Gavin Stowell (Webb City, MO),
Carter Poole (Kansas City, MO), and Ben Laird (Topeka, KS) round out the starting rotation for the Scotties and have all pitched well in their early opportunities.
Colton Minks and
Kyle Snyder have anchored the Scottie bullpen so far collecting 3 saves for the Scotties.
Next-Up:
Next up for Highland is the inaugural HCC Invitational in Topeka, Kansas. The Scotties will play 4 "Home Games" at the Bettis Family Sports Complex near Lake Shawnee in the Capitol City this weekend. Highland will play host to two quality opponents in Rock Valley Community College (Rockford, Illinois) and John Wood Community College (Quincy, Illinois.) Both Rock Valley and John Wood should provide a quality test for the Scotties as John Wood comes in to the HCC Invitational with a 5-0 record and Rock Valley enters with a 1-0 record. All Scottie fans are invited to Topeka to support the team, no admission fee will be charged! The schedule for the invitational can be found at the bottom of this article.
Saturday 2.25.23
11:00am - Highland vs. Rock Valley Community College
2:00pm - Rock Valley Community College vs. John Wood Community College
5:00pm - Highland vs. John Wood Community College
Sunday 2.26.23
11:00am - John Wood Community College vs. Rock Valley Community College
2:00pm - Highland vs. Rock Valley Community College
5:00pm - Highland vs. John Wood Community College
