As a sophomore last year, Denair High right-hander Kaden Prine put local baseball enthusiasts on notice after leading the entire Sac-Joaquin Section in strikeouts during the regular season with 100. This season, he has proven through the Coyotes’ first seven games that there were no flukes.
Last Wednesday, the Coyotes opened Southern Athletic League play with a 3-2 win over Mariposa County. On the bump was Prine, who tossed a complete game while only surrendering his two runs on three hits and a walk. He struck out 11 in the outing.
Not only did the performance get the Coyotes (2-5) off to a 1-0 start in league competition, but the win marked the first time since a 5-1 win over Woodland Christian in 2015 that the Denair baseball program defeated a team ranked in the top-100 of MaxPreps’ Sac–Joaquin Section rankings. Prior to Wednesday’s contest, the Grizzlies were the 25th ranked team in the section.
Despite the Coyotes losing the rematch 7-1 on Friday with Prine playing the infield, the Wednesday win is a big deal around Denair, as the school of about 300 students have not had a winning baseball season since 2009.
The 5-foot-11, 175-pound junior features a fastball, slider and a changeup. Catching him this year is fellow junior Lincoln Hart, who takes command and calls pitches from behind the dish. With Hart helping, Prine has achieved a 2-2 record while already having accumulated 42 punchouts in 21 ⅔ innings over four starts.
Sixteen of Prine’s 42 Ks came on March 1 in a complete game shutout of Johansen (Modesto), willing his team to a 1-0 win.
“I mean, it's kind of the same thing it always has been, just trying to throw strikes, get up early in counts and then collect strikeouts as they come,” Prine said. “You know, I’m not really trying to collect them or anything, they just happen.”
Denair head coach Mike Stucker explained that Prine throwing strikes early each at-bat can help the righty — and his team — be much more successful, especially compared to last year when the Coyotes had an overall record of 5-11. Prine was the winning pitcher in three of those games.
“We're trying to really pound the zone early. We're trying to get him to be able to go farther in the games,” Stucker said. “Last year, his pitch count got up high pretty quickly. By like the fifth inning, he was already up to his pitch count. And having him not be able to go into sixth and seventh innings prohibited us from winning the game a lot of times, so we're really trying to get him to throw a lot of strikes to really lower his pitch count so he can go later in the game. He did exactly what we talked about against Johansen, so we’re hopeful he can continue that.”
The only team that has been able to do significant damage against Prine thus far this year has been Turlock Christian. The Eagles — the D-7 section champions in 2022 and the section runners-up last season — scored three earned runs on two hits and four walks in three innings of work.
Aside from that roadbump, Prine goes to the mound each outing with the expectation to dominate. As the bonafide ace of the team expected to take the ball once a week, and with a team who is much more experienced than in year’s past, Stucker thinks his squad could surprise some folks as league play heats up. Eight of his 15 players this year are returners. Last season, he had just five who either returned or had no prior playing experience.
“I think they’re more athletic this year,” Stucker said. “The experience is still low, but I think it’s actually higher than it was last year. We have some guys that have actually played ball before, so that makes it a little easier for them to understand situations a bit better.”
