team 3A state field a season ago, and Carlisle also made the state semifinals. Eldred expects all three to be very good again, and he won’t overlook a team like ADM either. “The number one team is going to be North Polk,” he said. “After that, Ballard is going to be good and they return a bunch as well. And I know people will say Carlisle lost a lot, but I don’t care. They’re al- ways scrappy and so compet- itive.” North Polk returns three of the league’s top arms in Hunter Cook, Reece Wrage, and Ethan
Sanger, who combined to put together a 20-3 record a season ago. Bondurant-Farrar’s Will Pottebaum (5-0, 0.72 ERA in 2023) will keep the Bluejays in games he pitches, and ADM’s Grant Jansen (5-1, 1.31 ERA) has plenty of talent as well. Boone finished in the lower- third of the conference a sea- son ago, but returns a pair of offensive stars in Noah Davis and Lucas Moore. Davis hit .409 with a league-best 35 RBIs as a freshman a summer ago. Moore belted four home runs and plated 30 more runs. In other words, don’t sleep on
the Toreadors either. Where Gilbert fits into that picture, Jer- emy Eldred doesn’t quite know at the moment. And so he and his players will continue to plug away with the goal of playing their best baseball in July. Hey, it worked out quite well last year. “This is a team that
WANT MORE INFORMATION ON THE GILBERT BASEBALL TEAM? Use the QR Code to go to the team site on Bound. Results will be updated throughout the season.
will be ready to go right where we always are at the end of the year,” he said.
8 GAME ON | SUMMER 2024
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