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By ANDREW SIMONSON | Sports Editor

As the cold winter months carry on, somewhere on a local baseball diamond, high school players are starting practice in preparation for another highly-anticipated season.

Local powerhouses like Thompson, Shelby County and Vincent will look to make deep runs once again while playoff sides like Calera, Helena, Spain Park, Briarwood Christian, Montevallo and Indian Springs hope to replicate last season’s area success and make a return to the postseason.

On the other side of the coin, teams like Chelsea, Oak Mountain, Pelham and Westminster OM are out to prove that this is their year as they challenge last season’s playoff sides for their spot in the race to Oxford.

With Shelby County looking as deep as ever, let’s take a look at the biggest questions facing each local baseball team ahead of the start of the 2025 season on Thursday, Feb. 13.

Oak Mountain: Who will step up on the mound?

2024 Record: 21-12 (3-4 Class 7A, Area 6)

The Oak Mountain Eagles went on a tear last season while becoming a top-10 team, but a third-place finish in area play meant that they couldn’t prove themselves against some of the best teams in May.

This year, they will have plenty of returning seniors including Blake Benson, Brooks Braswell, Zach Fitzgerald and Will O’Dell, but the bigger storyline might be who’s gone: five different All-County selections, including star pitchers Bryson Mormon, Alex Harrison and Kevin Jasinski. Each of them had a 2.20 ERA or better, leaving a big hole on the mound for the rising seniors to fill.

Benson will likely be one of those called upon as he has a high-velocity fastball and strikeout stuff. There will be multiple other options behind him, including Will Tate and Fitzgerald, but with big hitting options returning including Braswell, the pitching staff will likely determine this team’s ceiling in a competitive area with Hoover, Hewitt-Trussville and Vestavia Hills, much how pitching elevated this team to some big wins in 2024.

Thompson: Can the Warriors get over the hump and into the finals?

2024 Record: 29-12 (5-2 Class 7A, Area 5), area champions, reached quarterfinals

Make no mistake about it: the Frankie Perez era at Thompson has been a success, hands-down. He has taken a perennially .500 program and orchestrated an incredible 37-8 campaign and semifinals run in 2023 and an improbable area title and quarterfinal berth in 2024.

For the Warriors though, success schoolwide is measured in rings. Perez himself even admits that. However, for those wondering if Thompson can finally make it to Oxford, this year’s team might just be the ones to do it.

The Warriors did lose four All-County First Team selections, including an Auburn Tiger and MLB Draft selection in two-way star D’Marion Terrell as well as reliable lineup staples like Ethan Crook, Drake McBride and Peryn Bland.

However, they’ll be led once again by their future Alabama ace in Ma’Kale Holden, who finished with a 2.45 ERA and 1.25 WHIP. Paired with a rising star in junior Wyatt Williams and other veterans like Ashton Blair, Ian Hillary and Brooks Byars, the rotation should be well-suited for the challenges of Class 7A. Much of the order will be filled with newer players looking to prove themselves, but between Perez’s proven track record of developing talent and returning veterans like Holden, Anderson Harris and Cooper Mills, there’s a solid foundation to build off of.

Class 7A is always a loaded field to navigate, but the Warriors should easily handle an area with Hillcrest-Tuscaloosa, Prattville and Tuscaloosa County and position themselves well to make a deep run once again.

Calera: Can the Eagles keep progressing in Class 6A?

2024 Record: 18-13 (2-2 Class 6A, Area 5), area runner-up, reached first round

The Calera Eagles had a solid season conclude in the first round as they had to go on the road to eventual semifinalist Spanish Fort and were unceremoniously dispatched in two games. However, look beneath the surface and the result means a little bit more.

Calera made its first trip to the Class 6A playoffs last year, breaking a five-season drought since its run to the Class 5A quarterfinals in 2018. While that is plenty reason to celebrate, now that it’s a new season, it’s all about starting a new streak: this time of consecutive playoff appearances.

They’ll have to do so without their best pitcher Will Harrison, who earned the fourth-most strikeouts in the county with 61 as he helped the Eagles secure some crucial victories over the course of the season. Harrison also was a staple in the outfield along with Aspen Long, and without either of them, the mantle now falls to the juniors who helped get Calera back to the playoffs.

Calera will certainly have a strong chance to make it back to the promised land with Helena exiting the three-team area in favor of Benjamin Russell. The Wildcats made the second round of the playoffs, beating Briarwood before giving Wetumpka all it could handle in a three-game series.

However, the Eagles still have a great chance of beating out both Ben Russell and Chilton County for the area title, which would potentially set them up for the next step as a program: a home playoff series and a deeper playoff run in Class 6A.

Chelsea: Who’s behind Grant Hill and Chase Lackey?

2024 Record: 17-15 (1-5 Class 7A, Area 6)

The Chelsea Hornets got a brutal draw in Class 7A, facing perennial powerhouses such as Hewitt-Trussville and Oak Mountain in area play, which made getting to the playoffs an uphill battle. This year, they’ll drop down to Class 6A, but the road only gets slightly easier in Class 6A, Area 8. Spain Park came down alongside the Hornets, joining Helena as playoff teams from 2024 fighting each other for spots in the playoffs.

Now, it’s a question of how well the current roster will handle the change in scenery. Chelsea coach Michael Stallings lost one of his biggest arms in Logan Moller, who last season racked up 67 strikeouts, which was second in the county only to Vincent’s Aiden Poe. In his place atop the rotation will likely be Grant Hill, a junior right-hander who averaged just over a strikeout an inning while earning a 2.1 ERA and 0.56 WHIP as a sophomore facing Class 7A competition.

Stallings will also have a key member of the infield returning in senior second baseman Chase Lackey. In 2024, Lackey batted .337 with 33 hits, providing an element of consistency to the order, but he can also make big plays on the base paths as he went 19-for-20 on stolen bases. The hope is that the Hornets will have more bats to build around him and take advantage of how often he is in scoring position from both his bat and his feet.

If Chelsea can build off its returning stars, expect it to challenge for one of the top two spots in the area and a return to the postseason.

Helena: Will a new area yield continued success?

2024 Record: 18-14 (4-0 Class 6A, Area 5), area champions, reached first round

While the Helena Huskies remained in Class 6A during the latest round of reclassification, their got a big shakeup. Instead of a three-team area against Calera and Chilton County, the Huskies will share a four-team area with county foes Chelsea, Pelham and Spain Park. Not only did the level of competition arguably increase, but the number of area series bumped up from two to three, giving added emphasis to a greater part of their schedule.

Luckily for coach PJ Guy, he has a key portion of his lineup returning this year. While longtime mainstays Ty Stricklin and Reece Mims graduated, Helena will have a pair of hitters who hovered around .300 last season in junior Davis Kelley and senior Jarret Scott, both of whom have a knack for driving in runs.

As for the pitching, Logan Barber is gone, but Trey Lampman takes his place as the senior starter after earning a 3.76 ERA last season. Brayden Dockery also returns after an All-County First Team season as a sophomore, finishing the year with a 6-2 record and 1.60 ERA. Austin Acosta also flashed plenty of promise as a reliever, racking up 17 strikeouts across his 9.2 innings as a junior.

With veteran leadership at the helm, the Huskies should be an area title contender once again with hopes of breaking into the second round and beyond after years of missing out on the quarterfinals.

Pelham: What will the Guy Howard era look like?

2024 Record: 4-21 (0-5 Class 6A, Area 7)

For the first time since before any of the current Pelham Panthers were born, Sean Anderson will not coach baseball at Pelham High School. His retirement was one of the biggest stories of the offseason, and he didn’t exactly get the send-off fitting of a legend after the Panthers went winless in area play in 2024.

Pelham moved quickly to land Guy Howard, who has a proven track record of success at South Carolina’s Belton-Honea Path and Northridge, and he also cut his teeth as an assistant at Hewitt-Trussville under the legendary Jeff Mauldin. In short, Howard knows how to run a competitive baseball program.

The biggest question with any new coach is always how different the team will look compared to the previous staff. Luckily for Howard, one of the biggest parts of that identity came into focus last year: junior shortstop Andrew Petrock. As a sophomore, Petrock made the most of his 66 at-bats, batting .409 while showing both power and speed with his seven doubles, three home runs and 8-for-8 mark on stolen bases.

Combined with other returning stars like Dylan Smith, Pelham has a strong foundation to build off. How far they go this year will be determined by how much they develop ahead of a tough area slate with Chelsea, Helena and Spain Park.

Spain Park: Will the pitching staff lift the Jags to contention?

2024 Record: 27-13 (5-2 Class 6A, Area 7), area runner-up, reached first round

Let’s get this out of the way up front: the Spain Park Jaguars absolutely should’ve made a deeper run last year. Shenanigans from Hewitt-Trussville prevented this team from playing for an area championship, and that led to an all-time barnburner of a series with Thompson that ended in walk-off fashion.

The Warriors series was emblematic of a bad late-season trend where the Jags had trouble keeping a lid on opposing offenses. It’s what led to one of their two losses in area play, a 10-7 game two defeat to Hewitt-Trussville, as well as multiple dramatic one-run games in the regular season ahead of a first-round series where they scored 38 runs across three games but gave up 32, including 11 and 13 in games two and three to seal their fate.

While a drop down to Class 6A keeps the rotation and bullpen from facing some of the state’s most fearsome offenses, their new classification is no cakewalk, especially a Class 6A, Area 8 with Chelsea, Helena and Pelham. That will require multiple arms like Patrick McQueeney, Jr., Caden Smith, Wesley Williams and Connor Kinney to step up into bigger roles and help pave the way for an offense that has lots of changes compared to last season.

Coach Will Smith’s lineup card lost five All-County players to graduation, including catcher Coleman Gray, first baseman James Battersby, third baseman Aiden Berke and outfielders Matthew Widra and Chapman Blevins. One of the returning bright spots though is infielder Rhys Jones, who finished with 42 hits, 44 runs and 18 RBI along with a .375 average as just a sophomore last year.

However, Jones won’t be able to do it alone, and he’ll need help from upperclassmen like Arnold Bush, Eli Smallwood, Andrew Thornton and Hagen Holley to reload the order and help the Jags contend once again.

If both the pitching and hitting are in the right spots, this team should not only contend for an area title but also make good on the playoff promise that this program has often showed.

Briarwood Christian: Do the Lions have the Will to win?

2024 Record: 17-13 (5-1 Class 6A, Area 7), area champions, reached first round

The Briarwood Christian Lions once again made a trip to the Class 6A playoffs last year, but another early exit had them down in Class 5A, where they will look to make a name for themselves against a competitive Area 8 of Shelby County, Sylacauga and Central-Clay County.

Luckily for them, they have a new face at the helm who knows a thing or two about success in Class 5A.

Chris Heaps won back-to-back state championships at Russellville before retiring from teaching and joining Briarwood’s staff in 2022, and now, he’ll have his first chance to lead the team as its head coach as it embarks on a difficult road to the state championship.

The Lions lost two of their biggest bats in current Samford Bulldog Jake Souders and outfielder Jackson Barnes, but they also have one of the area’s rising stars in senior outfielder Will Clark. Clark was the lone county selection to the North-South All-Star Game in 2024 and finished his junior season with a .322 average and .412 on-base percentage. He also had a knack for big plays as he earned 23 RBI off 28 hits.

While he has multiple upperclassman players around him including Brayden Robertson, Brooks Allred, Wes Burgess, John Paul Harbor, Charles Dedmon and Robbie Paulsen, expect the 6-foot-1, 195-pound Clark to lead the charge on offense and play a key role in his team’s success.

Montevallo: Can the Bulldogs replicate area success across entire schedule?

2024 Record: 9-20 (4-2 Class 4A, Area 7), area runner-up, reached first round

It was a rough season as a whole for the Montevallo Bulldogs as they finished with a 9-20 overall record. However, they ended it on a high note, going 4-2 in area play with their only losses coming against an Oak Grove team that made the Class 4A quarterfinals. That was good enough for a trip to the playoffs, albeit one that ended in a two-game sweep against Trinity Presbyterian, but still an accomplishment that the Bulldogs could build off of.

However, the pressure is on to deliver in a brand-new classification as it’s Montevallo’s first-ever season in Class 5A. Even with challenging area tests against Demopolis on deck, the Bulldogs should have chances against historically weaker teams in Jemison and Selma to make a return trip to the postseason.

While non-area play only matters in the final win-loss record, success in the opening two months of the season can go a long way in building consistent momentum ahead of area play and the postseason. To succeed across more of the season, Montevallo will need to build off the lessons learned from last year, which starts with returning players like juniors Ethan Juarez and Zachary Shores, sophomore Joseph Stone and senior Keiston Ross.

The Bulldogs should have a chance to get out of the area in 2025 and make it to the postseason, but the journey will likely determine the final destination as this team continues to grow.

Shelby County: Will last year’s underclassmen step up as leaders?

2024 Record: 24-11 (4-1 Class 5A, Area 8), area champions, reached second round

The Shelby County Wildcats have arguably been the model for consistency locally as they have reached the playoffs every year since the COVID-19 pandemic. Head coach Cory Hamric has built the program into a consistent contender in Class 5A that is an annual favorite to win the area championship and make some noise in the playoffs, as evidenced last year by the Wildcats’ area title and trip to the second round.

That said though, many key players from that team are now gone. Gannon Pharr was one of the most consistent hitters around, Micah Morris was a lockdown presence on the mound and Sam Carter served not only as a reliable backstop but a big-time hitter as well.

Two of those players who could fill their leadership void may just be Shelby County’s star duo of rising juniors: Cooper Pennington and Davis Ruston. Pennington has more than lived up to his last name in his first two seasons in high school, and he is coming off a 28-RBI season with half of his hits going for extra bases. Ruston is also a reliable presence to get on base as he struck out just 17 times in 2024 while reaching base in over half of his plate appearances.

The path to the postseason is now even harder with Briarwood joining Class 5A, Area 8, which already had multiple playoff threats in Sylacauga and Central-Clay County. However, bet against the Wildcats at your own peril as history has their journey end in the playoffs more often than not.

Indian Springs: Can Springs build off continuity in their offense?

2024 Record: 6-7, Class 3A, Area 8 runner-up, reached first round

Like many sports this year at Indian Springs, the baseball program is on the move to Class 4A. Springs had a solid season last year in Class 3A, making the playoffs for the second-straight season, this time as a runner-up after going undefeated in Class 3A, Area 8 to win the area in 2023.

However, it’s a new year, and one that brings a return to a classification that Indian Springs didn’t have much success in the last time around. The team missed the playoffs in both 2021 and 2022 in Class 4A, the latter being a winless campaign in area play

It will once again be a difficult draw for Springs as they will face last year’s area champion Oak Grove along with a pair of teams dropping down from Class 5A in Pleasant Grove and Fairfield. However, those series will all come back-to-back at the end of the season, giving the team plenty of time to figure things out ahead of the push for the playoffs in April.

Look on the team to rely on a strong pitching staff backed by right-handers Edward Davis, Gus Whatley, Jackson Geisen and Timothy Katz. Those four will fill out the infield on their off days and provide a rock-solid foundation for the team to build off of. Senior centerfielder Will Dunn will anchor the outfield, and he and Davis will provide key leadership as seniors.

In all, eight position players and six pitchers return this season, giving coach Mike Rowlett nearly all of his offensive and defensive pieces back to keep building off the past two playoff appearances. That is as strong of a base as anyone in the county, and the hope is that continuity will help Springs remain competitive in a new landscape of Class 4A.

Vincent: Is this the year to win a state championship?

2024 Record: 28-6, area champions, reached quarterfinals

 The Vincent Yellow Jackets are in the midst of a once-in-a-generation run with some of their most successful seasons in decades. They took the 2023 state championship series to a decisive game three and reached the quarterfinals in 2024 before losing to eventual state runner-up Mars Hill Bible. Now with some of their most talented players entering their senior year, it’s an open question if this is the last chance for Vincent to win a state championship.

Last year, the biggest question entering the season was if the Jackets could find a dominant No. 2 pitcher behind Class 2A Pitcher of the Year Aiden Poe. Landon Archer delivered, finishing 6-1 with a 1.40 ERA and an average of 9.3 strikeouts per seven innings as just a freshman. If they come anywhere near that level of success this year, expect them to win just about every best-of-three series they enter.

Two of their biggest bats are gone in Ray Albright and Camden Cobb, but last year’s All-State Second Team selection Casen Fields will lead the order and hope to spur on the rest of the Vincent offense, which seemingly generates new stars each season. Joining him will be Grayson Gulde, who averaged .358 as a junior last season, as well as fellow seniors Ethan McElrath and Aiden Gasaway.

The path to an area title should be easier with just a three-team area comprising of Westminster OM and Cornerstone Schools, but outside of that, this Jackets team will need to test itself against top teams early and often to prove they can topple two-time defending champion Ariton and the other powerhouses of Class 2A. However, Vincent can count itself among those top teams and will be one of the favorites to win its first state title since 1985.

Westminster OM: Will youth movement propel Knights to postseason?

2024 Record: 14-12 (5-6 Class 2A, Area 9)

The Westminster School at Oak Mountain Knights have a much different path to the postseason than a year ago. After nearly half of their games were in area play last season, they’ll just have two area series this year. That means the math is simple: just be better than either Vincent or Cornerstone Schools of Alabama to make the playoffs.

The decrease in area games may also help the Knights as their roster continues to gain experience. Of their opening day roster, only Taylor Hudson and Tucker Bradberry are seniors. The pair will have to step up as leaders for the five juniors, four sophomores, two freshmen and one eighth grader to help lay the foundation for years to come.

The Knights will have a few weeks of preparation ahead of their first area series against Cornerstone on March 4, and they will face teams like Childersburg, Midfield, Oak Grove and Central-Tuscaloosa from classifications above them to test their skills. They’ll also face Montevallo and Fultondale in their run-up to the crucial area series against Vincent, one of the best teams in all of Class 2A.

The hope will be for Westminster to be playing its best ball for that Cornerstone series, as it likely represents its best chance to make the playoffs. Win that and this team could be back in the postseason with a shot at glory.