After the Henderson Flash’s season ended last summer, owner Clay Bolin met with manager J.D. Arndt and asked what the team needed to get over the hump.

The last three seasons, the Flash have won the North Division of the Ohio Valley League, a summer wooden bat league featuring players from college baseball programs around the country.

Though division winners, the team has fallen short in the playoffs each of those years—2019, 2021 and 2022. Last summer, the Dubois County Bombers beat them two games to one to end the Flash’s season.

Arndt’s answer was pitching. “We need more arms,” he told Bolin.

So Bolin and company set out in the offseason to bring more pitchers to the Flash staff. That’s what happened.

In mid-May, Bolin said the team had signed 15 pitchers, and by the time the season starts, he expected the pitching staff to be 16 or 17. That’s up from the 12 hurlers the Flash had last year.

It’s one reason Bolin’s excited for this summer’s team. He said in past years the team had depth on their pitching staff or depth at the plate—but never both at the same time. This year’s team, he said, has both.

The number of total players is also up from past averages, Bolin said. The Flash in the past brought in 28-29 players each summer. This year, they expect 32 or 33.

Bolin calls this group the best “top to bottom talent on paper we’ve had coming in the start of the season.”

It’s no small task to gather a group of college players to form a team that will play together for a couple months and then be on their way.

Bolin said it’s taken some time to form relationships with coaches at some of the schools, but by building those relationships, Flash management know what type of players they’re bringing in because they know the type of players those college coaches bring in. 

Bolin said he prides himself on recruiting high-character people because they’re not only representing the Flash organization but also Henderson.

They’re also hosted by local families, another wrinkle in player recruitment. For the vast majority, the player-host family relationships have gone smoothly.

“I expect players to treat their host family parents as their parents,” Bolin said.

The organization—and all that goes into it—is working. One gauge, Bolin said, is the emotional state of some of the players in past seasons when the team got eliminated.

“It meant something to them,” Bolin said.

The players wanted to win for each other and for the organization—they weren’t just here to better themselves, which Bolin would certainly understand. One of the main draws of players is to use the summer league to improve so that they can return to their respective colleges and compete for starting positions, all-conference and one day, a chance at the big leagues. So Bolin said it’s “human nature” to want to use the summer only for themselves.

“But it’s totally not like that at all,” he said.

Another reason the team has gelled the past few years is Arndt, said Bolin, who calls his skipper a “baseball whisperer.”

Bolin calls Arndt a hitting guru and a player’s coach who can be firm when the moment calls for it. Entering his sixth season with the Flash, Arndt’s experience also includes coaching stints at Georgetown, the Frontier League’s Rockford RiverHawks, including two as head coach, and in summer wooden bat leagues, said the team’s website. He’s also currently an assistant coach for Henderson County High School.

 When the club calls former players in the offseason asking if they want to return for another season, Bolin says they invariably all ask the same thing: “Is J.D. coming back?”

He’s back. He’ll be assisted by Austin Dick, a graduate assistant on the Asbury College staff, and Paul Haupt, a former Flash player.

Henderson connections

One returner to this year’s Flash is Henderson native Sam McFarland. A graduate of Owensboro Catholic High School, McFarland just finished his freshman year at Kentucky Wesleyan College.

McFarland said he loves playing on his home turf in Henderson. Because he went to OCHS, he never played high school games in Henderson, and most of his earlier summers were spent playing travel baseball, not at Park Field where past generations played.

McFarland played with the Flash last season right after his high school graduation. He said the 2022 Flash season gave him a head start in his college career, equipping him with an understanding of the work ethic and competitiveness of players at the next level.

Still, McFarland wasn’t pleased with his freshman outing in a KWC uniform. He said he didn’t perform well and didn’t play as much as he would’ve liked. He’s using this summer with the Flash to get ready for his next year at KWC.

Like Bolin, he’s a fan of Arndt, who he said notices the minutiae of the game.

“He knows his baseball—big time,” McFarland said, adding that Arndt does a particularly good job of keeping this summer ball team locked in throughout the season.

Dru Meadows, a recent Henderson County High School graduate, will also don the Flash uniform. Meadows is a pitcher and centerfielder for the state tournament bound Colonels.

He’ll attend Oakland City University, where coaches have told him he’ll get a shot at both pitching and the field. For the Flash, he’ll just pitch. 

He knows the Flash competition will force him to stay laser focused. He said college hitters are bigger, stronger and more disciplined than those in high school. 

“I can’t have any mistake pitches,” he said.

He said Arndt first talked to him about pitching for the Flash in February, and he was offered a spot in the spring. He’s excited to team up again with Arndt.

“He’s wise,” Meadows said. “He knows what to do in every baseball situation.”