By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The Great Bend Bat Cat connection is working. Great Bend High School senior Carson Umphres had some options when choosing where to continue his baseball career. Utilizing some relationships made while playing for the the Bat Cats this summer, Umphres chose Northeast Texas Community College in Mt. Pleastant, 120 miles east of Dallas.
"When I went down there, I was very impressed with their dorms and their field, along with the coaching staff," Umphres said. "Their field is a nice, natural dirt field and they just put up a brand new outfield fence. The head coach is a very good person; a family-first, Christian guy. And they have an associates in engineering which will be accepted by almost all colleges. With recent Division I baseball rule changes, I knew junior college was going to be best for me. As well as it would better prepare me for a possible career in professional baseball as I have drawn draft attention this year."
The new assistant coach at NTCC is a former Bat Cat who stayed with the Umphres family while playing in Great Bend. Several Bat Cats have played at NTCC.
Umphres batted .455 as a sophomore for the Panther baseball team. He drove in 25 runs that season with one home run, five triples, and eight doubles. Last season, he drove in 19 runs and batted .415 with two home runs and 13 doubles. Umphres also led the team in innings pitched and strikeouts after going 6-1 with a 2.02 ERA. He struck out nine and held Junction City hitless in five innings in one outing last season.
Great Bend finished last season at 18-9 but came up a just shy of the state tournament. Umphres hopes to change that next spring.
"I am going into this season with higher expectations than ever while also not being worried at all," he said. "We haven’t lost anything we can’t replace and our team chemistry will be better than ever. Obviously, losing in regionals stunk last year but it happens and we have this year to make it count. We definitely have a more versatile team this year with almost all of our players being able to play anywhere.
"We have been doing offseason workouts and are about to start offseason hitting and pitching. I'm really looking forward to this team this year. One last ride with the kids I’ve grown up playing with really looking to leave a mark on GBHS baseball."
Trent Touchet played at Sam Houston State in college and played in Great Bend during the 2020 Bat Cat season. He spent the last two seasons at Louisiana Tech as a graduate assistant before taking on the assistant coaching job at NTCC. The Eagles posted a 33-24 record in 2024.
Carson is the son of Chris and Terri Umphres.