Palestine baseball season comes to close
May 6—The Palestine Wildcats baseball season came to a close over the weekend, falling in their playoff series with the Carthage Bulldogs two games to one. While the season did not close on a win, the Wildcats 2023-24 Wildcats will be remembered as one of the best in program history.
After falling in game one last Thursday, Palestine came back Friday night to even the series, stealing a game after trailing for a majority of the night. The Bulldogs built a 2-0 lead through the first five and a half innings of play, but the Wildcats struck for three runs in the bottom of the sixth, and senior pitcher Braeden Harris would shut the door in top of the seventh, preserving the win for Palestine, the first for the program since 2005.
In the rubber match on Saturday, the Bulldogs pitching staff would prove to be just a little too much for the Wildcats, holding Palestine to one hit in a 3-0 series deciding victory for Carthage.
But, the Wildcats laid the foundation this year for future successes. This year's team was the first to qualify for the playoffs in the last five years, and set a program single season win record, marking the win column 18 times this year.
The Wildcats have shown steady improvement over the last two seasons, which have been led by head coach James Dillard. With the return of him and his coaching staff, as well as his son Tag, a left handed pitcher, and a few others, such as Coyt Cooper and Tripp Hallmark, the Wildcats should expect another run to the playoffs next season, with a real chance to advance further then the team has been in quite some time.
