The Crowder Demons enter the spring baseball season with a senior-heavy team that has fourth-year head coach Casey Henry excited.

“I’ve got a really good group of kids and I’m really proud of the way they play and practice. Our expectations are the same as they are every year and that’s to get to the state tournament but we know it will take a lot of hard work to get there,” Henry said. “We’ll compete in Class B this spring with Fort Cobb-Broxton, Tupelo, Calumet, Boswell and Roff being the teams to beat.”

The senior standout for the Demons will be Royce Florenzano. He hit .670 during the fall season with 13 home runs and 64 RBI when Crowder went 17-13. Last spring, the crafty lefthander was dominant on the mound posting a 0.946 ERA while recording 65 strikeouts adding a .426 batting average while earning Pitt-8 All-Conference most valuable player. He’s followed by catcher Trevor Chancellor, whom Henry describes as “a big team guy who works his tail off” and hit .450 in the fall on the heels of Pitt-8 All-Conference honors.

Rounding out the senior crew are Austin Ives, Severyn Mills and Cooper Allison, who plays shortstop and pitches and had a 3.6 ERA in the fall. There are also talented underclassmen, including juniors Logan Anderson (3B), who hits in the cleanup spot, Kelton Bloxham and EJ Crow along with sophomores Ralin Dean, Austin Rowell and Austin Motley as well as five freshmen that will compete for time in the lineup.

“I think pitching is probably our strongest area.  We’ve got a couple of arms that will give people trouble and we also have a solid defense,” said Henry. “I think the area that we’ll need to improve the most in this spring will be at the plate where we need to be able to get the barrels going and string hits together and keep improving day in and day out.”

Among the teams on the Demons schedule this spring will be Buffalo Valley, Kiowa, Latta, Coalgate, Rattan and Stuart.

The Demons went 18-7 last spring in Class A and played deep into the regionals before being eliminated by Red Oak and Henry hopes that the change in class this spring plus the maturity of his top players will result in that hoped-for trip to the state tournament.