As the baseball season continues to kick off in and around the county, one school is more eager to do so than most.

Even though the Pike Liberal Arts School varsity squad has been playing for the past couple of weeks, they have only been playing against each other.

“This team needs to play somebody else other than themselves,” head coach Butch Austin said with a laugh Monday afternoon. “We are running out of games and scrimmage ideas.”

The Patriots will get its season underway tonight on the road against Prattville Christian Academy in a game that the coach said everyone needed – including himself.

“[The team] is definitely ready to start playing ballgames,” he said.

“They have been practicing pretty hard for the past couple of weeks, and I think they are ready to go.

“We had some positions that need to be filled [catcher and center field] and I think we found the kids who are going to do a good job,” the coach added.

As far as the Patriots’ first opponent, Austin said he expects to see a team similar to how PCA was last season.

“They only lost a few of their players, so they should be about the same.

“[PCA] will have some good pitchers as well as players who are going to make plays in the field. [At the plate] they aren’t going to hit homeruns, but they can put the ball in play and we need to be ready for that,” Austin said.