Historic baseball season at Pocahontas High
Dunmore, WV – Pocahontas County High School baseball had an historic season, winning their sectional championship and finishing 15-12, the most wins in school history. The season ended with a regional playoff loss at Valley-Fayette. Assistant coach Toney Minter says the team had an off-day in the one-game playoff.
“They had a good day – we had a bad day,” he said. “That’s all it takes to make a difference in a game. i think, if we played 10 games, we’d probably split with them, five and five. We’re pretty evenly matched and it was just how the day turned out.”
Minter says the team should be proud of their season.
“Well, we had one of the best seasons ever, here at the high school,” he said. “We recorded a record number of wins. We had a great group of seniors, came in. We broke 22 of 33 school records this year. So, obviously, we had a lot of success. We played very well through the whole year. We had a wonderful group of kids. Everybody can hold their heads up high and walk proud around through the community because this is probably one of the best teams we ever had.”
Senior shortstop Steve Halterman had a stellar season, batting .609 with 39 RBIs and 23 extra-base hits. Halterman set school records for batting average, slugging percentage, on-base average and home runs and pitched the first perfect game in school history. Minter says Halterman had a very good group of seniors to support him.
“Dillon Hovorka is a superstar on any other team, if he’s not behind Steve,” he said. “We’ve got Dalton Walker, who’s also a superstar on most teams if he’s not behind Steve, also. Then we had Matt Arbogast, another senior who played a lot. He was really solid behind the plate for us this year. So, we had a whole group of seniors, I would say. They came through. They gave it their best shot.”
Minter says the future looks bright for Pocahontas baseball, with upcoming stars, like Wes Felton, Brandon Hammons, Patrick Martin and Cary Robertson.
“Wes is a solid hitter,” he said. His fielding is improving from last year to this year. He’ll come along. He’ll be a team leader, pretty quick next year. Brandon Hammons is just a phenomenal pitcher for as young as he is. If he just keeps on improving, I look for him to be playing on bigger stages in the future. Pat Martin did an excellent job this year. He’s only going to improve. Cary Robertson – I can’t say enough fantastic things about him. He’s a speedster out there.He’s one of the few freshmen I know of that’s actually hit a home run.”