Coach Van Horn’s Texarkana visit

Baseball Insider Board
#1

Coach was in Texarkana Tuesday night (the 10th) for the Texarkana Area Razorback Club meeting. Not a tremendous amount of new info to share, but a few tidbits include…

  • He reminisced a lot about his 5 years in Texarkana, as several of his former players were present. There has always been a lot of baseball talent from this area, and Coach benefited from that during his tenure with the Bulldogs. One pitcher, Brent Bearden, played here before going on to star at Baylor. DVH tried unsuccessfully to get Coach DeBriyn to take him.

  • Collin Kuhn was present. He lives here now after marrying a Texarkana girl. Coach mentioned the walk off grand slam Kuhn hit against Kentucky on Easter Sunday.

  • He really loves his job, his program, and continuing to sustain success. He seems very pleased with Hunter Yurachek’s leadership and vision for the baseball program’s future. Genuinely excited about the coming baseball performance center.

  • “We have our catcher, 2 infielders, 2 outfielders, 2 weekend starting pitchers, and 2 new transfers who can really play, all returning for 2020. Trust me, we aren’t going away”.

  • Mentioned they are experimenting with Kjerstad at 1st base. He feels there are a couple of others (besides Franklin) who can really play outfield.

  • “Wait until you see our 2020 recruiting class!”

#2

I have a big baseball notebook coming tomorrow that will hit on a lot of this.

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#3

My only concern about catcher (and I don’t have enough data yet) is that the backups are all true freshmen. Matt can probably speak to their effectiveness and potential.

We certainly have had great freshmen catchers in the past. I hope that one or two can be good enough to play and give Opitz a rest.

#4

I think Tollett is going to be a good catcher and will get an opportunity to play this year. He is well ahead defensively of Tamez and Stevens.

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