New baseball league brings out best in local team

The Conway Rockies made strides during the Summer Select season, which could go a long way toward a 7A-Central Conference championship next spring.

The Rockies is made up of members from the Conway High School baseball team. This was the first year that the team ventured off to a new summer baseball program. The team grew together and some players stepped up and assumed roles that may have been taken by one of the seniors in the spring.

"That's one of the advantages that playing Summer Select baseball has instead of playing American Legion, is that you get to keep your high school team intact," Conway coach Dallas Black said. "You also don't have to deal with the problems of coaching someone from another city, or deal with the problems with those parents. Playing Summer Select helped us make huge strides and it was a big plus."

Conway finished 2-2 in last weekend's state tournament at Arkansas Tech University. The Cats defeated Greenwood and Benton, but lost to Benton in a rematch and Fayetteville.

"We just kind of ran out of pitching," Black said. "We have two main pitchers B.J. Lowe and Jordan Bell. After that we kind of have to pull guys from other spots. We had a couple of guys that had hurt arms too. We had a good year."

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Black said that he noticed how the team progressed. He was particularly impressed with how catcher Grant Blodgett handled game management.

"He made some big gains," Black said. "He did a great job of being a leader out there. He did a good job of calling the game. We would call the plays in the beginning, but he took over the play calling duties. He was able to keep himself and the pitchers on the same page."

Black called Lowe the nucleus of the defense at second base. Outfielder Ryan Valovich, who is moving to Hawaii before the fall semester, is considered college material in the eyes of Black.

"We'll miss him," Black said. "Hopefully, he'll be back playing at one of the colleges around here. We are very young though. We have guys that played on the younger team but got to play on this team also. Those guys like Garrett Anderson, Jordan Cates, Matt Lefler and Aaron Boucher, we are looking forward to seeing the next year. There are also some younger guys that have really developed this summer."