The Paschal Panthers Varsity Baseball team kicked off their highly anticipated 2020-2021 season with many question marks. How will the team perform after losing a good amount of seniors? How will last year’s shortened season come into play without the chance to develop key players? How will Head Coach Clint Dunham do in his 3rd year here at Paschal? All of these questions would be answered with a strong season that the Panthers had this year, and it certainly wasn’t an easy one.

The Panthers would get out to a relatively slow start to kick off the campaign, as they would drop their 6 of their first 9 games, bringing them to a 1-6-2 record. The uncertainty of this team would come into full effect after these games, as the team lost all but 3 of last year’s starting players.

Next up for the Panthers was the always exciting Drew Medford Memorial Tournament. This tournament is regarded as the best high school baseball tournament in the metroplex, as it honors former Paschal ballplayer Drew Medford. Drew was set to go play collegiate baseball at TCU, but was tragically killed in a car accident months before leaving for college. This hit the community very hard, and because of this, the 20 teams that compete yearly each give a small scholarship to one hardworking and lovable senior on each team that exemplifies the type of person that Drew was, a great baseball player and an even better person. 

The Panthers kicked off the tournament going 2-1, headlined by a 8-7 comeback victory over the Aledo Bearcats. The team would then close out the tournament going 3-0-2, capping it off with the highly touted Paschal vs. Heights game to prove who the best team in Fort Worth is, which was a very important 3-1 win on the road over the Yellow Jackets. After a great set of tournament games, the Panthers were 4-6-4 heading into District play.

The Paschal Panthers got rolling early in their District season, which was realigned and is believed to be more difficult than the previous district that they were in. The new District consists of Chisholm Trail, North Crowley, Haltom, Trinity, Weatherford, Paschal, Bell, and Boswell. In the first two weeks, the Panthers swept both Chisholm Trail and North Crowley to start 4-0. 

The Panthers would then go on to split series’ with Weatherford, Haltom, Bell, and Boswell, and ending with a sweep over Trinity to make the Panthers district record 10-4. This put the Panthers in a tie for second place with Bell, with Boswell in a secure position of first place. The Panthers then had to play a tiebreaker with Bell to see who would be second place in the District, which ended in a tough loss. With district play coming to an end and the top four teams making the playoffs, Boswell was the sole leader of first with an 11-3 record, Bell in second with an 11-4 record, Paschal in third with a 10-5 record, and Weatherford in fourth with a 9-5 record, followed by Trinity (8-6), Haltom (3-11), North Crowley (3-11), and Chisholm Trail (2-12) rounding out the bottom half.

Going into the playoffs, the Panthers would have to face a tough Southlake Carroll team, who were 2018 and 2019 6A State Champions, in a winner-take-all game on the road. The Carroll Dragons struck for 3 in the first inning, and despite competing for the remaining 6 innings in a 0-0 ballgame, ultimately ended up winning the game 3-0, sending the Panthers home unhappy. After a season full of uncertainties, The Paschal varsity baseball team finished with an overall record of 14-14-4 and a first round exit in the 6A playoffs.