The day has finally come. The 2020 high school summer sports season begins today. After months of downtime due to COVID-19, the PCM baseball and softball teams will both play host to South Hamilton today to raise the curtain on the 2020 campaign.

The Mustang softball team will begin coach Shaun Hudnut’s second season at the helm with an early test. The Hawks finished second in last year’s Heart of Iowa Conference standings, and return two of the top four batters, as well as an experienced starting pitcher. Freshman Paige Steenhoek will likely get the start in the circle for the Mustangs, who look to continue their rebuild. South Hamilton swept the series last year, and has won the last three meetings.

The Mustang baseball team will take on a Hawk team that finished two games above .500 last season, and just below PCM in the conference standings. With an experienced pitching staff and three batters who averaged above .250 last season, the Hawks have their sights set on climbing the conference leaderboard and contribute to one of the more successful athletic programs in Central Iowa. Head Coach Jeff Lindsay says that there’s no question that Iowa Western-bound Derek Brown will get the opening night start, and the opening week will be a test for his rebuilding team.

“We’re going to start out with Derek obviously, as our first game pitcher, and we’ll see how we do there. Playing that back-to-back that first week, we’ll really see what we’re all about against a Saydel team that’s usually a pretty good program. And then obviously North Polk, who’s a really good program year in and year out. It’ll be interesting to see how we do with the pitching aspect of it.”

PCM swept the series last season. Both games begin at 7:30 p.m. The softball game takes place at the high school in Monroe, while the baseball games will be played at the middle school in Prairie City.