The Conway baseball team is possibly one pitch or a few inches in a sense away from a 7A-Central Conference championship.
As it turns out, the Wampus Cats (19-10) finished third, setting up a matchup with Bentonville (13-16) the sixth seed in the West at 6:30 tonight at North Little Rock's Burns Park Field No. 2 in the first round of the Class 7A state tournament. Today's contest will mark the first step in CHS' quest to return to the state finals, where it fell to Fayetteville last season.
Had Conway defeated North Little Rock on Monday the Charging Wildcats won 4-3 the Cats would have captured the conference's top seed after Cabot swept a doubleheader with Little Rock Catholic, which took the No. 1 spot. But Conway coach Noel Boucher doesn't want to get caught up in what-ifs.
"I felt like we played pretty good against North Little Rock and would have had at least a No. 2 seed. But, we're fine with a 3 seed," Boucher said. "That changes our pitching a little, but there's not much we can do about it now.
"We felt like we had a pitch not got our away (against North Little Rock) that would have ended the game, and we were just a couple inches away (on Landon McClain's potential walk-off home run). We're over that and looking forward to Bentonville."
The season's been full of challenges many weather-related and Boucher doesn't see today's contest as any different.
"Bentonville's a pretty good team. It's going to be a tough task," Boucher said. "I though we battled the weather a lot, and I think things could have been different it the weather had cooperated more.
"I feel really good about the kids' effort. They showed up to play whenever we had to. Getting on the field was the hardest thing. We can only do so much on the sideline."
The more they got off the sideline onto the field, the more Boucher liked what he saw.
"I felt like we made some positive steps along the way," Boucher said. "We've gotten a little rested after having to play nearly all the time. I'm anxious to see how we'll come out and play."
Zach Wyatt, the Cats' No. 2 pitcher, will get the nod on the mound today. Should he and Conway come away victorious, they would play Springdale Har-Ber on Saturday.
They'll have to get past Tiger hurler Erin McGee. Boucher, though, has been satisfied with the offensive production.
"We've been OK swinging the bats," Boucher said. "We've been offering at good pitches. We haven't squared up as much as we'd like to, but we've done all right."
That's just part of the trifecta Boucher said is important in being successful.
"It comes down to quality pitching, making routine plays and timely hitting," Boucher said. "Those things win a lot of baseball games."
Winning is nothing new to the seniors, who finished 27-4 on last season's state runner-up team. Boucher is hoping for more of the same this time around.
"I think it will be an advantage for the guys who were in that situation," Boucher said. "I hope they remember what it's like and can carry it over to this year.
"You can't really look at that. We have a task (starting today), and that's what we have to be focused on. I think we'll be OK and ready to go."
