Pullman Baseball Season Outlook
Pullman Baseball Season Outlook
With the core members of 2024’s state team gone, and coming off a difficult road to playoffs ending in a loss to Othello, Pullman Baseball looks optimistically at its new group and opportunity to capture a top 2 GSL seed. The squad consists of new leaders, as well as a strong group of underclassmen to fill the roles required to compete. Although relatively inexperienced at the varsity level, the team expects to provide a consistent roster and depth that will drive competition and create a positive team culture.
The Greyhounds are relatively light in the area of returners, although they do return multiple GSL All-league players in 1st team outfielder Adrian Hecker and 2nd team infielder Will Denney. Senior leadership is also expected to play a role on the team, with Blake Dobbins, Cash McCann, and Carson Forar returning for their second full years at the varsity level, and Braden Barnett being added at catcher after missing his junior year due to injury.
Pullman Baseball is privileged with an extremely strong freshman class, who are anything but inexperienced when it comes to playing at high school equivalents. Brayden Northcroft, Harrison Focht, Grant Lovinger, and Rocky Karino-Evans are all expected to make some level of varsity impact in all aspects of the game.
The Hounds, despite their youth, have been around the game a long time. They are expected to be a very fundamentally solid team, playing clean defense and putting together a batting lineup that is very consistent from top to bottom. This group is athletic, and should be excellent on the base paths as well.
The biggest question mark coming into the season is the absence of an obvious direction in terms of pitching. Last season, the majority of starting nods were shared between Joey Hecker and Brady Coulter, both of whom graduated. In the early goings of the season, the Hounds will most likely have to test the waters and find a new crop of pitchers that will be reliable and provide a level of production similar to Pullman’s pitching success of the past.
In terms of important matchups coming into the season, the Hounds have West Valley, Deer Park, And Moscow circled as key challenges that will provide a solid test before they enter into postseason play. Additionally, the Hounds will look to get revenge against non-league Lakeside at home after a late-game collapse caused the team to lose last year’s contest disappointingly. Games like these will serve as a litmus test for how their reworked roster will stand up, with the intentions to earn a top 2 spot in league and earn a state berth.
Coach Kevin Agnew, in his seventh season as head coach, has been tasked with rebuilding this Hounds team. From what he has seen of his team, he feels optimistic about many aspects of what this new collection has to offer. After the team’s opening jamboree against Rogers and West Valley, Coach Agnew spoke about the place the team is at so early on being very impressive, in terms of consistency and multiple impressive individual performances that he believes will only improve as the season progresses.
Pullman Greyhounds Baseball in 2026 is at a tipping point in the program. With a largely new cast, the team is dead-set on a state appearance, hoping to gain experience and a team culture that continues into the future. They sit well in league to make the run, and hope to possibly go the furthest a Pullman team has ever gone under Coach Agnew.