Defense was the name of the game for the Cashton Eagles baseball team this season. The Eagles held their opponents to five or fewer runs more than a dozen times in 2026 en route to an overall record of 11-13-1 and league mark of 7-5, which secured fourth-place finish in the Scenic Bluffs Conference.
The Eagles limited opponents to five or fewer runs in 14 of the season’s games this spring. In those games, Cashton went 11-3, proving that a strong defensive effort yielded on-field success.
Cashton held its two postseason opponents to an average of a half run a game. Coach Jeff Moreno and company won a Division 4 regional quarterfinal matchup against Independence/Gilmanton 5-0, before stuffing a 1-0 loss at Royall in a semifinal round.
The defense paired well with the team’s pitching depth led by Drew Butzler, according to Cashton head coach Jeff Moreno. The coach added that towards the end of the season, the team hit their peak defensively.
“Our seniors really understood their roles and the positions they were going to play,” Moreno said. “Jett Pedretti, our freshman catcher, had a really nice second half of the season. He was learning by trial by fire in the first half, but he was very coachable and by the time we got to the second half of the season, he was no longer a freshman catching. He was just a varsity catcher.”
Moreno added that while the team may have fallen short when it comes to the goal of making it to a regional championship game, it still grew and played good baseball. The coach added that he hopes coming up short is used as motivation by the returning players.
“Hopefully it sort of whets their appetite for wanting to push past that point in the next year or two,” Moreno said. “I think our senior class did a good job setting them up for success as they move and become upperclassmen.”
One of the lessons Moreno said the seniors passed along to the returning players is to have an optimistic approach to all aspects of the game.
“I think our seniors did a good job of showing that,” Moreno said. “It is not one game or one at-bat that makes a season.”
When it comes to the future, Moreno said that this group of seniors, including players such as Butzler and Dylan Hoeft, will have their fingerprints on the success of the Eagles at both the varsity and JV levels.
“They were coaching them and providing feedback,” Moreno said. “They were cheering them along and doing the things you expect good senior leaders to do. Drew was slightly more vocal with the way he led the team. Dylan was very much by example. They really complemented each other with their style of leadership.”
Even though the season ended sooner than the Eagles would have liked, Moreno said there was success in other equally important ways.
“I think the boys still have a lot of great memories that they will take with them. They had a great time learning and growing together and being able to be leaders,” Moreno said. “Ultimately we have a nice batch of kids that will come back and try to push past that and achieve that goal over the next couple of years.”
