The Rossville baseball team won its 10th game in a row on Friday, improving to 11-1 overall, with two wins over Santa Fe Trail, 4-2 and 11-6.
Ranked sixth in the most recent 3A baseball rankings by the coaches association last week, the team is more concerned with that ranking at the end of the year but it's noticed improvements after bringing back experience from a regional run last season.
Offensive improvements
Heading into the offseason after a second-round loss in regionals last year, the team knew where it needed to improve and that was at the plate.
"The two years prior these kids have played, we were a pitching, defensive team," said head coach Eammon Bradley. "We’d pitch the ball well, always had low ERAs, threw strikes, were tough to hit and we’d play good defense.
"We didn’t put up a lot of runs against teams that typically pitch it well. You play the Rock Creek's or you play a Wamego team, and we weren't knocking them out of the park left and right. We knew as a group we had to be better there."
Some of the data will average out as the season continues, but some of the numbers stand out now too.
Rossville scored in double digits in eight of 23 games last season. Through 12 games this year, they've hit double digits nine times already.
Last year, Rossville had a team batting average of .302, with 163 runs, 183 hits, 121 RBIs, 25 doubles, four triples and three home runs with an on-base percentage of .420, a slugging percentage of .372 and an on-base plus slugging percentage of .791.
Right now, with four doubleheaders remaining in the regular season and the post season still to go as well, the team has a .357 batting average with 121 runs, 94 hits, 102 runs batted in (RBI), 15 doubles, four triples and five home runs.
The on-base percentage is .511, the slugging percentage is .501, and the on-base plus slugging percentage is a 1.013!
Heading into the doubleheader against Santa Fe Trail on Friday, six players had a batting average over .300 including junior Kade Perine (.320), senior Corey Catron (.364), senior Aiden Garcia (.306), senior Torrey Horak (.519), senior Kaden Brown (.444), senior Tegan Kippes (.448) and senior Brody Lietz (.444)
"Our bats have gotten a lot better since last year," said Lietz, the first baseman. "Overall contact and on base percentage have gone up. A lot fewer strikeouts and more balls in play, when that happens usually things go your way."
Bradley pointed out the seniors as being the number one reason why, saying their overall approaches to at-bats are better, seeing more pitches per bat, seeing more walks as a result and just better pitches to hit in general.
"That's probably the biggest difference in why were successful compared to last year," said Bradley.
Experience spurring season
At this point last season, the Rossville baseball team held a 7-5 record with four doubleheaders remaining in the regular season.
Now, after the wins over Santa Fe Trail on Friday, they've dropped just one game and are in a good position to secure the first league title since 2014.
"The whole year we kept filling out lineups and just noticed how many juniors we were putting in it," said Bradley on last year. "(We knew we) had the opportunity to be pretty good next year. You knew it wasn't gonna be a rebuilding year or a setback year.
"There's always that experience we would use to improve on what we would do last year and so far that's held true."
Despite losing two key contributors from last year's team in designated hitter Bo Reeves and right fielder Parker Kennedy, the team returned seven starters this year and 80 percent of its innings pitched. It's the most Bradley has returned in his five years as head coach, besides maybe the COVID canceled year.
"This is by far the most experienced lineup we’ve had," said Horak, the centerfielder. "Our freshman year we had 4-5 freshman that played often/started. Having 7-8 seniors that can play consistently is huge, especially at a 3A school."
The DH position has moved around on this year's team, and Tegen Kippes has stepped into the starting role in right field.
"Tegan Kippes, he's stepped in, and was kind of competing with Parker last year for the job," said Bradley. "This year, he's stepped up massively, huge improvement from last year."
While the bats have been hot, returning experience on the mound is another key to this team's success thus far.
Catron and Garcia, along with sophomore Camden Horak, who saw playing time as a freshman, are leading the way on the mound for Rossville.
Heading into the doubleheader against Santa Fe Trail, Catron had a .54 ERA with 14 strikeouts, Camden Horak had a 2.00 ERA with 12 strikeouts and Garcia had a 2.15 ERA with 13 strikeouts.
Of the seniors this year, five saw good playing time as part of the 2019 team that placed third in 2-1A, and that experience is important for a team that has a good mix of experienced underclassmen and talented underclassmen.
After losing their sophomore year to COVID and losing in the second round of regionals last year, going out with a deep post-season run in baseball would be the cherry on top for the senior class after most were part of the latest state football title in the fall.
"With football this year, how that finished was great," said Catron. "Being able to finish with a baseball state title would be amazing too."
Contact Seth Kinker at skinker@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @SethKinker
