ECHS baseball team begins season, looks for wins

Kenny Lindsey said Monday that he wants to keep building on the program that former Escambia County baseball coach Michael Parker put in place.

Lindsey, who is in his second year as a coach at ECHS, said Parker was his mentor and that he learned a lot from him.

“The last two years, coach Parker was the head baseball coach,” Lindsey said. “He did a really good job of actually teaching the game of baseball to them. He’s a really good coach and teacher. We won seven games last year, and made it to playoffs.”

The Blue Devils began their 2016 baseball campaign on Feb. 18 at J.U. Blacksher. ECHS lost the contest, 10-3.

ECHS will field seven seniors this season in Carlos McNeil, Devante Dailey, Emmanuel Etheridge, Jeffrey Feely, Marlon Lee, Rashaan Flavors and Zachary Locklar.

Lindsey said about four to five seniors haven’t played baseball at the school since he’s been here.

“They came to try outs and did well,” he said. “They wanted to be a part of a team one last time.”

In area play, the Blue Devils will match up against Vigor and Jackson in Class 5A, Area 2.

“Jackson’s a very good baseball team. I can tell you that,” Lindsey said. “With Vigor, we played them last year, and they were pretty decent themselves.”

Lindsey said the Blue Devils’ outfield is going to be quite different this year.

“We’re having to start the season off with a whole new outfield,” he said. “We lost some pitchers last year.

“All in all, even though we’ve got eight or nine seniors, we’ve got a really young team,” he said.

Lindsey said he knows what people’s expectations are for this year’s team, and that eventually, winning will come.

“I’ve got high expectations for this season,” he said. “I’ve got a group of seniors that are stepping up and being some good leaders for us. They’re going to be the senior class that will get this program going in the right direction.”

The Blue Devils are hitting the road to East Brewton for the county tournament at W.S. Neal from Thursday until Saturday.

ECHS plays Flomaton, WSN and T.R. Miller in tournament action.