Editor’s Note:<\/strong> This is the first of a four-part season baseball preview featuring the four Kent School District programs.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The faces and names have changed this spring on the Kentwood High baseball diamond.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The optimism, well, that has remained largely the same.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Kentwood won its first Class 4A state title last season since 2000. And though the Conquerors graduated 11 seniors, including their top pitcher and South Puget Sound League North Division MVP Austin Voth and a slew of sluggers, they expect a repeat.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Who\u2019s going to win this year\u2019s state title?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cKentwood. No doubt,\u201d said 6-foot-6 Washington State University-bound ace Avery Kain. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to come in being positive. Granted, the other teams are great, but that\u2019s what we\u2019re going for.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n No Class 4A team has ever won back-to-back state championships. Until last year, the Conquerors hadn\u2019t won a title since 2000. Yet, taking aim on a state title isn\u2019t about being cocky or arrogant for this bunch, but rather about setting high goals and working to maintain those standards.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cWinning a state title is always the goal,\u201d said Kentwood coach Jon Aarstad. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to set our goals short. But everybody on this team knows that we\u2019re not good enough to repeat right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Indeed. But the Conquerors have the pieces in place to make a run deep into May. In a preseason poll among SPSL North coaches, Kentwood was the unanimous favorite. The result may surprise some, especially considering the hit the team took from graduation.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n A look out to the mound, however, and everything becomes clear. Pitching. In a program that has prided itself the last several years on having some of the best pitching in the league, this year\u2019s staff may be the best.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cOverall, top to bottom, this staff is better than last year,\u201d Aarstad said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The Kentwood pitching staff posted a 2.20 ERA in league play last year and struck out more batters (136) than innings pitched (102). Those numbers don\u2019t include the eight runs allowed in 28 innings of work the staff put together in four state victories, either.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n And yet, this year\u2019s staff is better?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s incredible,\u201d said Kain. \u201cIt\u2019s like a community college staff we\u2019ve got. It\u2019s going to be a blast.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n That staff begins with Kain, but hardly ends with the tall righthander. Kain, who dials up his fastball between 84 and 87 miles per hour on a consistent basis and should go higher this spring, threw a complete-game, 2-hit shutout in Kentwood\u2019s 8-0 victory over Richland in last year\u2019s state championship. He will lead the Conk staff, but will not be overused, Aarstad stressed.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cWe really won\u2019t need to lean on him that much,\u201d the coach said. \u201cI think I could throw 7 or 8 guys out there who will be quality varsity pitchers. I don\u2019t think we will hit like we did last year \u2014 we still have good hitters \u2014 but our pitching is going to lead the way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Behind Kain is senior lefthander Kyle Doyle, who posted a 1.47 ERA and struck out 25 batters in 19 innings pitched in league last year. And junior Taylor Jones, a 6-foot-6 righthander, is among the state\u2019s top juniors to watch by northwestbaseball.com. Both Doyle and Jones can run their fastball up to the plate in the 85 to 88 range.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The talent is there, but plenty of work remains, Aarstad noted.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cI see the potential that we have and I see the room for growth,\u201d he said. \u201cI see the kids coming in and being really hungry.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The faces and names have changed this spring on the Kentwood High baseball diamond.<\/p>\n The optimism, well, that has remained largely the same.<\/p>\n Kentwood won its first Class 4A state title last season since 2000. And though the Conquerors graduated 11 seniors, including their top pitcher and South Puget Sound League North Division MVP Austin Voth and a slew of sluggers, they expect a repeat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":10519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-10518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10518"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10518"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=10518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}