POCOMOKE — The Trojans already are halfway to their regular-season win total of last year, and that came with their 8-0 shutout on opening day at Pocomoke.
It’s understandable, then, why Mike Iacona, who steps up as head coach after two years as an assistant, is upbeat a week and a half into the 2026 campaign.
“I’m optimistic we can double our win total, get five to seven wins, and improve from last year,” Iacona told The Evening Enterprise in a telephone interview Sunday.
“If we play clean baseball, make the plays we should make, I think we can compete with most schools,” Iacona said, with the caveat that Kent County will have to play “perfect baseball” in order to hang with St. Michaels and Colonel Richardson, the top two teams on the Mid-Shore for the better part of the last two decades.
KCHS returns 10 players from last year’s 3-15 campaign, including six seniors.
The newcomers are led by three freshman starters, Nate Copper, Paul Roberts and Jake Stumpf.
Coach Iacona believes this is Kent County’s best team since 2023 when the squad that included seven seniors went 11-7, swept St. Michaels and split with eventual Class 1A state runner-up Colonel Richardson.
The only holdover from that team is Noah Iacona, now a senior, who was the Trojans’ 2025 most valuable player.
He was in MVP form in the 2026 opener March 20 at Pocomoke, earning the win after pitching 3 2/3 innings of no-hit relief and contributing offensively with a single, a double, an RBI and one run scored.
There were runners on every base, and only one out, when Iacona [one walk, six strikeouts] spelled starter Aiden Crouch in the last of the second inning.
By that time, the Trojans already had all the runs they would need.
Iacona scored what would hold up as the winning run. He drew a walk to lead off the game, moved over to second when Roberts was hit by a pitch and then to third on a free pass to Scottie Ford.
A one-out, bases-loaded walk to Stumpf scored Iacona.
Roberts, representing the insurance run, scored one batter later on a walk to Tyrel “Teeter” Dean.
Overall, the opportunistic Trojans drew 10 walks and stole 10 bases.
Roberts [walk] and Stumpf [two walks] each had a hit.
Stumpf relieved Iacona to start the sixth, and pitched two scoreless innings.
KCHS is 1-3 with consecutive losses during the week to Mardela, 15-0; Colonel Richardson, 8-7; and St. Michaels, 11-1.
At Colonel on March 24, the Trojans led 7-5 after batting in the top of the sixth.
The home team pushed three runs across in the last of the sixth.
Stumpf “pitched five strong innings and kept us in the game,” coach Mike Iacona said. “He pitched into the sixth, then had to be pulled because of the pitch count [limit].”
Stumpf and the other two starting freshmen, Roberts and Copper, contributed at the plate.
KCHS played almost perfect baseball, committing just one error.
NEXT UP: Kent County is home Tuesday, March 31 against Cambridge-South Dorchester. The first pitch is at 4 p.m.
The Trojans travel the following day to North Dorchester.
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Kent County’s returning players are: seniors Zayvion Brown [left fielder], Aiden Crouch [left-handed pitcher, outfielder], Tyrel Dean [center fielder], Scottie Ford [third baseman, catcher], Noah Iacona [shortstop, right-handed pitcher, catcher] and Braden Wilson [first baseman, right-handed pitcher]; junior Nate Sutton [second baseman]; and sophomores Reid Fry [first baseman], Drew Haas [infielder] and Owen Sutton [infielder].
Playing their first year of high school baseball for the Trojans are: senior Chase Dolgos [infielder]; junior Colton Ford [first baseman, outfielder, designated hitter]; and freshmen Nate Copper [right fielder], Paul Roberts [second baseman, right-handed pitcher] and Jake Stumpf [catcher, right-handed pitcher].
Diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia as a freshman, just a couple of weeks after the conclusion of his 2022-23 junior varsity basketball season, Dolgos earned his first varsity letter in basketball this winter. He is a utility player on the baseball team.
Ford is a transfer from Chestertown Christian Academy who played soccer for KCHS in the fall.
Mike Iacona [Class of 1989] is the head coach at alma mater KCHS, assisted by baseball alumni Brad Wilson and Brandon Iacona.
