Jared Clutts named as new head coach of Cobden High School baseball team

Former Cobden Junior High School baseball coach Jared Clutts has been named as the new Cobden High School baseball coach.

Clutts was hired to fill the post Monday night at a regular meeting of the Cobden Unit School District No. 17 Board of Education.

Clutts succeeds Craig Partridge, who resigned recently after four seasons  as the head coach of the high school baseball team, which won a Class 1A state championship in 2015.

Clutts, who is a special education teacher at the school, has been the junior high school baseball coach for the last four years. 

His team won the Class M state junior high school championship in 2015.

“We’re going to be a very young team with a bunch of freshmen,” Clutts said about his new high school squad. “Our biggest thing is we lost six seniors from last year.”

He said that this season’s team will have three seniors, three juniors and four sophomores, with the remaining members of the team being freshmen.

“They’ve had success at  the junior high level,” Clutts said. “We should be pretty good if we put in the work.”

Several members of this year’s team played on the Cobden American Legion Junior baseball team this past summer and will bring added experience to the team.

Dana Pearson, who was the head Cobden American Legion Junior baseball coach, will remain as an assistant under Clutts. L.J. Hackethal and Will Bunyan will be volunteer assistants.

“I’m excited about the fall season,” Clutts said.