Vina Red Devils mixing experience and growth as 2025 baseball season begins
When Vina High School hits the baseball diamond to start the 2025 campaign, the Red Devil team's makeup in terms of age and experience will be a little different than in years past.
Vina head coach Cody Renfrow said the baseball team has grown in numbers but swelled with athletes who have either taken a few years off or haven’t played at all to this point.
“We’ll be an inexperienced team but an older team—I know those two don’t really seem to go hand-in-hand,” Renfrow said. “We’ve got several seniors out that haven’t played in recent years, but we’re happy to have them out there. I think there’s potential there and we’re excited.”
It may take a little while for those older, inexperienced players to pick the game up or shake the rust off, but Renfrow said the Red Devils are not lacking in any leadership ability.
“There are multiple guys that will provide that leadership role. Some of them have been playing baseball over the last few years, but some, like a Cai Lawler—he hasn’t played in a few years—can come in and step into a leadership role. Tristan Farr, as well—those are a couple of guys you know you can lean on when it comes to leadership and being kind of an extended voice of mine on the field and at practice,” Renfrow said. “They understand the standard that it’s important we play up to and practice with.
“Christian McCarley is another one that hasn’t played in a few years, and we’re really excited to get him out there this year. He’s a tremendous athlete, great attitude, great leader,” he added.
“Lane Easterling is another one who is one of the players with more experience than some of the others as a junior. We’ll lean on him at shortstop and he’ll log several innings on the mound, for sure.”
Apart from the top-tier leadership intangibles, on the field Renfrow said his Red Devils come into the season with other strengths. The head coach believes this team will need to rely on its defensive ability, especially early on in the year.
“Obviously we still have a ton to work on, but I think the strength in the team, if I had to pick one to lean on, I’d say it’s defensively,” Renfrow said. “We’re further along there than we have been in the past.”
Vina’s pitching staff, Renfrow said, is going to rely on the guys behind it to help retire the other side this season.
“Our weakness would be on the mound. We’re gonna have more depth on the mound this season than what we’ve had in years past, but we don’t have a lot of guys that are gonna overpower you,” he said. “We’re gonna have to pitch to contact and get outs that way. We’re not gonna have any guys that are gonna get 12 or 13 strikeouts a game, so we’re gonna have to play solid defense.”
Vina will eventually need more than just defense in order to make the playoffs, though. The Red Devils are in a tough area and will need to play well to get out of it.
“We’re in a bit of a different area this year. With Belgreen moving up to 2A we’ve added Lynn to our area along with Hackleburg and Bear Creek,” Renfrow said. “Over the last years Hackleburg has had a good baseball team along with other sports and they’ve set the standard in our area—the standard we’re chasing.
“Lynn is also a good baseball program, especially here recently, and Bear Creek will be competitive, as well,” he added. “I think we can compete with all of those teams but we’ve got a lot of work to do at the same time.”
Hard work and improvement, regardless of the ultimate outcome, is what Renfrow and the Red Devils are pushing for in 2025.
“I’m optimistic and looking forward to the season,” Renfrow said. “We wanna work to get better each and every day and at the end of the year to look back and say we’ve played to our potential. Whether that’s playoffs, winning the area, being the two-seed, winning double-digit games, or just missing out on the playoffs—just getting better every single day and really competing, no matter who we’re playing. Playing to our standard and to our potential, that’s what we wanna do, regardless of what they may be.”