CHERRY VALLEY — The Cross County baseball Thunderbirds are preparing for regional tournament play for the first time in nearly a decade.
The T-Birds beat East Poinsett County 8-4 last Tuesday in the 2A-3 district tournament to advance to this week’s Class 2A North Regional.
Cross County baseball coach Alex Coveny said today’s game is one of the most important in recent history for the program.
“I mean, this is a big game for us. If we win this game, then we go to state. … I don’t know if anybody knows when the last time Cross County went to the state tournament,” he said. “I feel like I don’t have to say much for them to know how important this game is to the school, the program, the community.
“Obviously, I don’t have to give them a big rah-rah speech to get them hyped and pumped and ready to go, especially P-W who we’re familiar with. A lot of our guys know their guys, so it’s not a game that I have to over-amplify.”
The T-Birds are the third seed from the 2A-3 conference and will play Palestine-Wheatley, the second seed from the 2A-6 conference. Game time is 5:30 p.m. today (Thursday) at Buffalo Island Central.
The winner of the Cross County-Palestine-Wheatley game will play the winner of Riverside and Carlisle at 2:30 p.m. on Friday.
Win or lose, Coveny said he is proud of how his team has performed during his first season at Cherry Valley.
“Overall, I’ve been nothing but proud of the way we have gone about a lot of things,” he said. “This community is very tight with a lot of their people. That’s awesome. It’s been a change for them seeing an outsider coming in and trying to lead them. Overall, they’ve responded to me great. They’ve really bought into what I’ve come in and tried to teach and implement. Obviously, there’s stuff that I think we need to improve on going into next year, but they’ve been nothing short of great for me so far.”
