By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
Cabot High School on Thursday hired Little Rock Central’s Ronnie Goodwin as the new head baseball coach.
Goodwin spent just one year at the helm of the Tigers’ baseball program and takes over a Cabot program that just finished its first year in brand-new accommodations that include a new baseball field and an indoor practice facility.
Goodwin replaces longtime Cabot coach Jay Fitch, who won more than 200 games and suffered just two losing seasons in his 14 years as head Panther.
Goodwin inherits a Cabot program on the rise. It bounced back from a disappointing season in 2012 to win more than 20 games and finish in the top-five in total wins in one season in school history.
Goodwin is a former college coach, spending eight years as an assistant at the University of Central Arkansas. He left coaching for two years before accepting the job at Little Rock Central last June. The Tigers went 19-11 overall and 9-5 in conference play last year under Goodwin’s direction.
Cabot’s season turned around midway last year, largely on a sweep of the Tigers in a conference doubleheader in April at Cabot’s new field.
Goodwin is a 1997 graduate of North Little Rock High School, and played three seasons of college baseball at Ole Miss after spending one year at Westark Community College, now called UA-Fort Smith.