Rawlins Named As Softball Coach At MCHS

RICK PECK MCDONALD COUNTY PRESS Skyler Rawlins coaches first base for the McDonald County Mustang baseball team during the recent district tournament. Rawlins will take over as head coach of the Lady Mustang softball team this fall.
RICK PECK MCDONALD COUNTY PRESS Skyler Rawlins coaches first base for the McDonald County Mustang baseball team during the recent district tournament. Rawlins will take over as head coach of the Lady Mustang softball team this fall.

The 2014 McDonald County Lady Mustang softball team lost not only eight players to graduation, the program lost coach Tray Shaddox to retirement.

Shaddox started the softball program at McDonald County in the spring of 1995 and remained as head coach for the program's first five years.

The Lady Mustangs made their debut under Shaddox that fall, winning two games. The following year they won three and before dropping back to two wins in the third year of the program. But in the fourth year they won eight games and the next year, McDonald County recorded 17 wins.

Shaddox stepped down from coaching as his children grew up, but returned as an assistant coach in 2009 and took over as head coach again in 2011.

The senior-dominated 2014 squad finished with an 18-9 record. Lost to graduation were Rachel Brown, Coley Ickes, Kyla Buchanan, Cheyanne Chappie, Chayleigh McCool, Courtnie Welch, Ashlie Westgate and Hailey Dillow.

Taking over the reins in 2015 will be Skyler Rawlins. Rawlins just finished his first year at McDonald County High School where he served as an assistant football and baseball coach while teaching math to special-education students.

Rawlins is a 2007 graduate of Seneca High School and a 2013 graduate from Missouri Southern State University where he was a member of the Lions baseball team for three years.

After graduating from Southern, he was a junior high football and wrestling coach and high school assistant baseball coach at Joplin before taking the head baseball job at Locust Grove, Okla, for one year.

"We have some really good young talent," Rawlins said. "Hopefully, we will get better as the year goes along. The kids have been around a good team here at McDonald County and hopefully that will rub off."

Rawlins recently visited all the junior high schools in the district to meet players and discuss the softball program at the high school.

"I think we will have good numbers in the freshman class," Rawlins said.

Rawlins said he likes to be aggressive on the bases and to steal and take the extra base when the opportunity is there.

"I have learned the girls work hard here," he said. "They are very coachable and do what you ask."

Rawlins will be assisted by Lee Smith and Neal Hutton.

He and his wife, Christin, have no children.

Sports on 06/04/2015