Iron Horses’ baseball unranked in ‘rebuilding year’ amid AAA debut

Philip Simmons High School baseball coach Josh Kubisz was succinct in listing his team’s accomplishments in 2022. 

 

The Iron Horses finished second in Region 6-AA, won 20 games for the first time in the program’s history and reached the Class AA Lower State Championship Series, finishing in the top-four in the state.

 

“Then we graduated nine seniors,” said Kubisz, who guided the Iron Horses to a 20-11 record. “We are definitely in a rebuilding year. But we have a good group of players and it’s not like we are starting from scratch.”

 

Interest is high in the program as Kubisz has 16 players on the varsity roster and 20 on the junior varsity squad. The Iron Horses plan to have a B team next spring for middle-schoolers.

 

Last year’s squad was ranked in the preseason top-10 after going 12-10 in 2021. This year, the Iron Horses begin the season unranked.

 

The biggest graduation losses included all-state selections Tristan Skipper, who was 4-2 as a pitcher and catcher Tripp Williams, who batted .317.

 

The Iron Horses posted a 10-0 victory over First Baptist to begin 2022, but dropped games to Woodland and May River.

 

Heading up the list of returners are seniors Grayson Mitchell and Colin Clifford. Both players have been members of the team since the program’s inception.

 

Mitchell batted .426 last spring and led the team with 35 hits, while Clifford has the talent to be the ace of the pitching staff. He was second on the team last year with a 4.38 ERA

 

Nolan Clifford and James Hart are other pitchers that Kubisz is counting on. Another hurler to keep an eye on is Cullen Williams.

 

“He’s a side arm pitcher who throws frisbees and tells batters ‘to hit that,’” Kubisz said.

 

The Iron Horses are competing at the Class AAA level for the first time and the key to the season is to show improvement every practice and every game.