The Wellsville-Middletown baseball team got back on the winning track in Alex Thull’s first season as head coach this spring.

The Tigers finished 9-9 after winning just two games a year ago. Their season ended on May 15 with an 8-0 loss to Cairo in a Class 1, District 12 semifinal game at Battle High School in Columbia.

The loss ended the high school baseball careers of six W-M seniors – Dylan Alsop, CJ Curd, Mason Guzy, Lucas Moore, Kaleb Peak and Logan Pursifull. All of them played with the Tigers’ program for three years.

Thull, who replaced Justin Caldwell as head coach this spring after working as an assistant last year, said the seniors were great to work with.

“I’ve grown very fond of them during the two years I’ve been here,” Thull said. “I’ve known most of them for much longer because my wife has been here (at the W-M R-I School District) for seven years now. They really set the tone. It’s easier as a coach to sit back and just keep everything moving when I have seniors who are just so committed, having fun and picking each other up. This is a senior group that I don’t know that any group will ever see again. That’s how good they are.”

Peak said he enjoyed working with this year’s senior class. He, Alsop, Moore and Pursifull also competed in track this spring. All of them competed at the Class 1 state meet.

“It’s been great this year,” Peak said. “We had great coaching. We have more seniors this year. Last year, we lost seven seniors from the previous year and that hurt us. We were a really young team last year. We lost only two seniors last year and they were a great part of the team. All six of us seniors really stepped up, gave it our all and pulled the team together.”

Alsop, Guzy and Curd were named to the all-Eastern Missouri Conference team. Alsop, who tied a school record for most strikeouts in a game with 18 against Louisiana, earned his third all-conference honors. Guzy – who will continue his baseball career at Hannibal-LaGrange University next year – and Curd were named on the all-league team for the first time.

Juniors AJ Sherwood and Tristin Hill, sophomores Justin Beaubout, Tim Cash, Haskell Davis, Gage Marshall and Wyatt Moore and freshmen Logan Davis and Isaac Todd rounded out the W-M squad.

After starting off their season on March 20 with a 7-3 loss to Community R-6, the Tigers bounced back with a four-game winning streak that included three wins in conference play. W-M was 7-3 at one point of the season before losing six of its next eight games – including a five-game losing streak – to finish at the .500 mark.

The Tigers began postseason play on May 11 with a 4-2 win over Glasgow in the district quarterfinals, avenging the 3-2, 10-inning loss to the Yellowjackets in the 2022 district quarterfinals.

W-M also had wins over Clopton, Louisiana, Van-Far, Marion County, New Bloomfield, New Haven, Mark Twain and Sturgeon. The Tigers finished 4-6 in EMO play.