Yogi Berra once famously said, “In baseball, you don’t know nothing.” While Berra might be right in his own way, it is hard to say that new Henderson County baseball coach, JD Arndt “don’t know nothing” about the game.
Arndt, who is serving on an interim status, has a wealth of baseball knowledge from having coached all levels of baseball for 40 years. He spent 2018-2023 as an assistant for Henderson County under then head coach, Adam Hines. He is also the manager of the Henderson Flash, the summer college wooden bat team that won its first league championship this past season.
The new head coach is ready for that type of success to translate on the high school field, but he knows that it will be a challenge with the youth on this team.
“I like our team and enjoy teaching them the game,” Arndt said. “You’re coaching these kids and trying to win, but you’re also trying to develop them for the next year and the year after. It’s a dual philosophy.”
The Cols are two years removed from a final four finish at the state tournament in 2023. Last season, which was the only one for former head coach Ted Thompson, was disappointing for Henderson County as they finished 11-25.
They were beaten by Union County in the 6th district championship, after having defeated the Braves twice earlier in the season. After upsetting the top team in the region, Lyon County in the first round, they were eventually eliminated in the semifinals of the 2nd region tournament in a heartbreaking 11-10 loss to University Heights.
Departing from last year’s team are 10 seniors, many of whom were major contributors. Reed Rheinhardt and Alec Satterfield now play for Oakland City University.
Rheinhardt was an All-Region and All-District performer. According to KHSAA, he led the team with 60.2 innings pitched with 64 strikeouts, while posting a 2.65 ERA. He was also third on the team with 16 RBI and fourth with 22 hits.
Satterfield joined him on the All-Region Team and tied him with 22 hits. He also led the team in runs scored at 24.
Max Thompson is another former Colonel now playing in the college ranks at Brescia University. Last season, he had the team’s fourth highest batting average (.260), the third most hits (25), and the second most runs (19).
Other players Henderson County will miss are All-District pitcher Clayton Brown, Evan DeKemper and his 2.92 ERA, and Jayce Hicks who was the second-best hitter on the team with 29 hits and a .293 average.
The cupboard is not completely bare for Arndt, though. This year’s team will return its best hitter, statistically, from last year in senior Cooper Vowels. An All-District player himself, Vowels posted a .298 batting average, with 31 hits and 18 RBI, leading the team in all three categories last season. Vowels knows it is his time to step into a leadership role.
“It’s my senior year and I want to leave it all out on the field,” Vowels said. “I want to be the best teammate and best version of myself. I had those upperclassmen that I got to look up to as a freshman and sophomore and that’s the role I’d like to play. We’re a young team, but we are going to come along and be ready by May.”
Vowels listed several players to keep an eye on this season including fellow seniors Max Meadows, Corben Throgmorton and Gavin Herndon. Others to watch out for are sophomore pitcher Cole Thompson and his classmate Brody Belt, who Vowels described as “an outstanding player who is athletic and hungry.”
Throgmorton will be an important bat in the Cols lineup as he collected 22 hits last year and tied Vowels for the team lead in RBI with 18.
Junior Sonny Shelton hopes to be able to take a major step forward by helping his team on the mound.
“I’ve never really been a pitcher,” Shelton said. “My ERA is looking pretty low and I feel good on the mound so hopefully I get more time up there. Once playoff season starts, we just want to be better than we were…and make it back to the state tournament.”
Arndt knows that he has quite a bit of young talent with which to work.
“The sophomore class is pretty talented. I love the whole team, but projection-wise we have a strong sophomore class. You’ve got Golday, Belt and Thompson pitching meaningful innings on varsity as sophomores. Colby Sutton is a freshman pitching meaningful innings. The next two or three years should be fun.”
What might not be as fun this season is the gauntlet posed by the 2nd region. If Henderson County plans to win the regional championship, the Cols will have to topple two preseason top ten teams. In its first poll, Prep Baseball Kentucky ranked Lyon County #2 in the state and placed University Heights at #9.
Henderson sits at 1-5 on the season as of Saturday.
