Scott City youth movement travels to Class 3 final four

Tyler Rogers is the lone senior on the Scott City baseball team who has had a regular spot in the Rams' lineup during their postseason run to the Class 3 final four.

Upperclassmen have been in the minority in all of Scott City's boys varsity uniforms over the last few seasons, and Rogers has had a front row seat for all the gain and growing pains.

"It kind of feels like -- all four of my high school years put together -- it seems like we weren't very good in the beginning of the season, but now towards the end we're starting to get everything together," said Rogers, who plays football, basketball and baseball. "Now it's meeting together up at baseball season, and we're starting to go farther and farther."

This baseball season was no different for the Rams, who started the year 1-6 but have won 11 of their last 12.

"At the beginning of the season we struggled hard, then I think we've really picked it up from last year," said sophomore starting pitcher and shortstop Braden Cox, who has been at the forefront of the youth movement. "Losing sectionals, it hurt. I didn't really realize what we had lost, and now I realize what we could have had last year that we have this year."

Cox will likely get the start in today's 4:30 p.m. state semifinal against Warsaw. He's 7-2 this season with a 1.72 ERA in 69 innings pitched. He also hits .418 from the leadoff spot and has driven in 20 runs.

"Really we've just been closer as a team in every sport because most of us play every sport together," Cox said of his teammates. "I think that, and especially coming over from basketball, it's made us a lot closer and that's probably why we're being more successful."

Eight regulars on the baseball team played varsity basketball and most of the roster played football as well.

As a result, the group of players that found themselves thrust onto the varsity stage earlier than most have learned to win, and sometimes how to handle and learn for from losing, together.

"I was told I was going to be playing up," said Cox, who started at quarterback as a freshman despite never playing the position before. "I was going to have the chance to, just depending on if I was going to [earn] it or not. I had to learn a lot. Baseball came a little bit easier, but basketball and football it was really hard. I had to learn a lot from the coaches to even compete."

Scott City athletic director Kerry Thompson said a smaller enrollment -- the high school had close to 400 students less than a decade ago and now has 228 -- and the natural cycle of students who have an interest in sports led to transition.

"You get that group that wants it and they're hard-working and want to play hard together and they want to do this and do that, but we went through a cycle where we didn't have that," Thompson said. "This young bunch, with some veterans, they want to compete and there's more of them, not just one or two or three a class. And we've got a young bunch again behind our freshmen that's coming up that I think is going to be pretty good and pretty strong, but the thing is they've stuck together. We've gone through some adverse times this year -- started off pretty rough and they stuck together. I think a lot of that goes to coach. There's nobody that stuck with them more than Coach May."

Jim May serves as both the football and baseball coach for Scott City. While the baseball final four appearance is the biggest payoff for the young Rams so far, May said the dividends started during basketball season this year.

"They had a really good basketball season," May said. "They were in districts with Charleston, which Charleston beat them, but they had a fantastic record and they played exceptional, and so we started seeing the payoffs there. The recognition is nice, but we were already seeing it. Maybe not everybody else was seeing it, but we were already seeing it. And there's hopes of good things to come."

May said he would spend time collecting information on Warsaw as well as Lutheran St. Charles and Fatima, who will face off at 7 p.m. today in the other Class 3 semifinal, but he'll keep most of his players' focus on how they execute.

"I feel like we're going to hit the baseball because we've been hitting the baseball," May said. "It matters to us if we catch it. Being young, we're still prone to make mistakes. If we don't make a lot of them we usually do pretty well. We've gotten past hanging our heads and feeling sorry for ourselves when we make a mistake."

May pointed to a botched rundown play in the Rams' state quarterfinal win that allowed the tying run to score and another runner to reach third with no outs. The players remained composed and Cox retired the next three batters to escape the jam.

"We're not deterred," May said. "We've done that so much, which may not be a good thing, but we've done that so much we've learned how to deal with it. It's minimizing mistakes on our part and just giving ourselves a chance by playing our game, scrapping some runs together and catching the ball. I normally tell them if we catch the baseball and hit the baseball we'll have a chance to win."

Class 3 final four

Scott City

The Rams (20-12) are led at the plate by junior left fielder Trent Pobst, who is batting .500 out of the No. 3 spot in the lineup. He has five home runs, two triples, 12 doubles and a team-high 43 RBIs. Sophomore ace Braden Cox is batting .418 as the lead-off hitter and has a team high 18 stolen bases. Sophomore Dylan Keller is hitting .375 with 18 RBIs.

Freshman lefty Dakota Talley, who started and won Scott City's state sectional game, is 4-2 with a 1.17 ERA in 36 innings pitched. Freshman Bryan McNeely, who closed the sectional, is 1-2 with a 1.05 ERA in 33 2/3 innings.

Warsaw

The Wildcats (22-2) are led by a couple of senior standouts in shortstop Jeremy Eierman and starting pitcher Joey Cooner.

Eierman is batting .513 with eight home runs, two triples and nine doubles. He's driven home 32 runs while striking out just twice this season.

Cooner, a 6-foot-2 lefty, is 6-1 with a 0.79 ERA in 53 innings pitched. He's struck out 86 batters and walked 12. Senior Bailey Jelinek is 7-0 with a 2.96 ERA in 40 2/3 innings. He's also batting .378 with 19 RBIs.

The Wildcats haven't lost since April 10, when they fell to Southern Boone 3-1. Their only other loss this season was a 7-5 decision to Holt in their second game of the year.

Fatima

The Comets (20-7), who are making their third consecutive final four appearance, feature five players batting close to the .350 mark or higher, led by senior Samuel Hager's .384 average with 15 RBIs. Hager is also 2-2 on the mound with a 1.56 ERA in 27 innings.

Senior Logan Vogel, who is batting .370 with four home runs and five doubles, is 7-1 with a 1.66 ERA in 42 1/3 innings. He's struck out 30 and walked 20.

Five Comets have pitched at least 22 innings this season. Junior Josh Holtschneider is 4-0 with a 1.35 ERA in 26 innings. He's struck out 28 and walked six.

Fatima's schedule has been littered with tough competition, including losses to Class 5 quarterfinalist Rock Bridge and Class 5 final four team Eureka.

Lutheran St. Charles

The Cougars (16-12) are led by the .471 average, three home runs, seven doubles and 21 RBIs of senior center fielder Winston Jefferson. Senior Matt Seacrist bats .352 and has drawn 13 walks while batting in 12.

Seacrist has thrown the second-most innings on the team with 35 1/3. He is 4-3 with a 2.97 ERA, striking out 49 and walking 10.

Senior Matt Leigh has thrown a team-high 42 1/3 innings. He also has a 4-3 record to go along with a 2.81 ERA. He's struck out 27 and walked 11.

Sophomore Patrick Seacrist boasts the lowest ERA on the staff at 1.75 in just 12 innings thrown.