Expectations are sky-high for the Palisade High School baseball team this spring.<\/p>\n
Fresh off of a second-place finish in the Southwestern League and a trip to the Class 4A state tournament semifinals, the Bulldogs return a hefty helping of production, and are primed to once again be among the top teams on the Western Slope this spring.<\/p>\n
Offensively, the Bulldogs have retained the majority of their run production from last year\u2019s state Final Four squad. Palisade graduated just one of their top six hitters by batting average from 2025 \u2014 Easton Embrey, who now plays in the junior college ranks with Florence-Darlington Tech in North Carolina. Standout returners like Kian Kinslow, Dylon Larson and Hunter Howard highlight a six-man senior class who hope to return to the final weekend of the state tournament again this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re expecting chemistry and leadership from our seniors,\u201d Palisade coach Nate Porter said. \u201cThey\u2019re gonna play, they can all play, they\u2019re all good ballplayers, so the only two things I\u2019m looking for are chemistry and leadership. I couldn\u2019t be more proud of this group that we have here right now, from a character and personality perspective. They\u2019re quality human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Howard, who was the heart and soul of the Bulldogs\u2019 basketball team fresh off trip to the 5A Great 8 last weekend, showed that he hasn\u2019t missed a step on the diamond despite an unexpectedly lengthy basketball season. The senior shortstop connected on a fastball in the third inning of the Bulldogs\u2019 13-6 win over Ponderosa, depositing it beyond the fence in left field for a three-run home run.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a 2-1 count, we had a little delayed steal action with Dylon (Larson),\u201d Howard said. \u201cFinally saw the fastball, he missed it over the plate. So I put the barrel on the ball, and it went.\u201d<\/p>\n
In only three games played this season, Palisade has now gotten home runs from three different seniors \u2014 center fielder Larson and catcher Will Seriani are the others. Larson was a complete offensive threat last season, leading the team with a .526 batting average in his junior campaign; Howard, meanwhile, hit .411, good for third-highest on the squad. All three of the current seniors finished the season with only two home runs apiece in 2025.<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs\u2019 most prolific bopper is third baseman Kian Kinslow, who has yet to hit his first long ball of the season despite leading the team with six of them as a junior. Kinslow also features a strong glove, and will be a big part of Palisade\u2019s run prevention unit on defense throughout the year.<\/p>\n
Tobyn Trottier, a standout lineman for the Bulldogs in the fall and a heavyweight wrestler in the winter, also figures to provide Palisade plenty of offensive firepower in his final prep campaign. Trottier finished second on the team with three home runs in only 67 at-bats as a junior. If he can continue to translate his size into power, the first baseman could provide crucial at-bats for the Bulldogs late in the season.<\/p>\n
Rounding out the senior six is Danyel Ishida-Farmer, the Bulldogs\u2019 top arm this spring. Ishida-Farmer threw 37 1\/3 innings of 3.00 ERA baseball as a junior. Both marks rank first among returning Bulldog pitchers. After the graduation of Embrey and former fireballer Garrett Draper, Ishida-Farmer is in line to handle the bulk of the Bulldogs\u2019 innings on the mound this spring.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been playing together since freshman year, and most of us actually played on varsity our freshman year, so we\u2019ve been together and in this environment for four years now. It\u2019s pretty cool to be with your boys the whole time and have then by your side,\u201d Larson said. \u201cEspecially being the same age, being seniors, going to school with them and all that. I mean, it\u2019s definitely meaningful to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite building a 6-0 lead early, Palisade\u2019s bullpen struggled to close out Friday\u2019s contest. The Palisade pitching staff surrendered six runs on seven hits in the top of the sixth inning, temporarily pulling the game even a 6-6. But the Bulldogs responded resoundingly with seven runs in the bottom half of the inning, reestablishing their lead in the process. Howard recorded the final four outs on the mound for Palisade, which improved to 3-0.<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs are off to a hot start in 2026, but it\u2019s the end of the season, not the beginning, that they have their sights set on.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do want to go out in a way that\u2019s going to be remembered, not just by me, but by very single teammate, coach, and the school,\u201d Howard said. \u201cI think we\u2019re all on the same page of ending our senior year at state, because some of us, this is the last time we\u2019ll ever take a baseball field. Some of us are going to the collegiate level, but, I mean, this chemistry, this culture… there will never be anything else like high school baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Expectations are sky-high for the Palisade High School baseball team this spring. Fresh off of a second-place finish…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":654480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[43084,43067,43079,591,175109,7472,5949,7471,1884,239582,265830,175111,1266,43073,62,43086,27063,43085,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-654479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-athletic-sports","tag-ball-and-bat-games","tag-ball-games","tag-baseball","tag-baseball-teams","tag-grass-field-surfaces","tag-home-run","tag-lawn-games","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","tag-major-league-baseball-teams","tag-mlb","tag-outdoor-sports","tag-sports","tag-team-activities","tag-team-sports","tag-turf-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116226148565340500","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}