NEOSHO, Missouri– The Neosho Wildcats baseball team is off to a 5-1 start in their early season.

They won four games this past weekend in the Roy B Shaver Classic Tournament.

Head Coach Bo Helsel said, “It was really exciting. I knew coming into the season that we had a lot of experience. We’ve been through these games. And so I knew that if we can play our game, play Neosho baseball, hit the ball around, pitch it well and play good defense that we would come away with a lot of wins. And that’s exactly what we’re able to do. And I give these kids all the credit.”

In the Roy B Shaver tournament, Neosho defeated Reeds Spring 11-0, defeated Hillcrest 10-0, and in the semi-finals defeated Diamond 14-1.

But, in the championship game they would walk it off against Strafford after and RBI-single from Kael Smith to win 4-3.

“Yeah, it was exciting. I know these kids. I know that their drive to win and after some things didn’t go well in the middle of that game towards the end of that game,” Helsel said, “we stayed locked in. Our dugout was great all day, our pitchers were great. And I trust these kids, you know, they know what to do. They’ve been in these situations”.

The Wildcats have two home games this week. On Tuesday they will host St Mary’s Colgan, and on Thursday they will host Lakes Community High School.

As the season goes on, the expectations are high with this group that has a strong core of guys and a lot of experience.

“We’re five and one right now. We play in a really tough conference. So we got to come ready to play every day. If we play like we did this weekend, we can come away with a conference championship, no doubt in my mind,” Helsel said, “and see where we’re at in districts and go from there. But these kids are ready to play and they did awesome”.