The Broken Bow American Legion Post 126 juniors baseball team will begin play Friday at the Class B Area 6 baseball tournament in Minden. The Bow juniors are the #5 seed in this year’s tournament and will open play Friday afternoon against #4 seed York at 1 p.m. Broken Bow is 8-11 overall this season. The juniors have been in a lot of close games this year as seven of their contests have been decided by just one run. Broken Bow is 2-5 in those games.
Kyle Kellum is in his first year as head coach of the Bow juniors and took time to visit with KCNI/KBBN sports about the season and the upcoming area tournament. Pitching is always a key when trying to advance through a double elimination tournament. Kellum said that he is pleased with where their pitching staff stands at this point of the season.
“We have kids that we found to say OK this is going to be our rotations. These are the kids that we know we are going to start. These are the kids that we know we are going to use perhaps as a middle relief or for even a closing situation if we get into trouble. We know the strengths of each of those kids to know who we need to throw in the situations so we’re fortunate. I don’t think you can ever have enough pitchers but we’re fortunate that we have a good collective group.”
Kellum has seen a lot of growth during the season in this year’s team and is confident with where the team is heading into the area tournament.
“I feel really good about where we are coming into this tournament. I don’t have any hesitations at all. I feel we’ve set ourselves up really well. There’s going to be some tough teams in the tournament. We’ve faced most of them so we also know what a lot of their strengths and weaknesses are as well. Coming into this tournament I feel we are at our peak and that’s really where it needs to be.”
The winner of Friday’s game between Broken Bow and York will advance to play the top seed Holdrege on Saturday. Live coverage of all Broken Bow juniors games at the area tournament will be broadcast on KBBN 95.3 FM and kbbn.com.
