Four area high school baseball squads will all take a different approach to the spring season as they battle it out in the North Super Regional District 1.
The Groton Tigers return a large part of their starting lineup as they look to rely on experience to get them out of District 1. The Redfield Muskrats will look to keep building off their last season carried by young talent. Warner-Ipswich-Northwestern rosters 25 on the squad this year as it will push for the state tournament, Clark will look to keep the vibes high in order for a deep run.
Groton returns seven key players and will mix in a few new players to fill in any spot at any time.
“We feel good about this team. We bring back a lot of experience and have some young guys ready to get out there,” said Groton coach Seth Erickson. “We are returning Gavin Englund, Karsten Fliehs, Jarrett Erdmann, Lincoln Krause, Nick Groeblinghoff, Alex Abeln, and TC Schuster from last year’s team. … Jordan Schwan, Ryder Schelle, and Case Reints will see significant playing time. All three are very athletic and can be plug-and-play at many different positions.”
Out of those seven returners, five are solid pitchers to help shore up that area of the game this season.
“Gavin, Jarrett, Nick, Alex and TC will be the top guys on the mound for us. We feel pretty lucky to have five guys that can pitch a complete game,” Erickson said. “We need to do a better job of throwing strikes and closing out games. That’s been a struggle for us in the past. I think this team can overcome that.”
The Tigers will look to rely on their hitting and experience to take them to the state tournament after falling just short last year.
“Last year we hit just as well as anyone around, we felt like. We need to continue to hit the ball hard to move guys around the bases,” said Erickson. “We’ve been telling the guys the sky’s the limit. We have a lot of talent and experience, just need to put it all together. If we do the little things right, we’ll be OK.”
The Muskrats peaked at the right time last year and they will look to continue that momentum from a season ago.
“We’re looking to build off of the success we kind of had towards the end of the year. A lot of guys were in their first year last year kind of playing some varsity baseball and we definitely took our lumps,” said Redfield coach Tommy Gregg. “By the end of the year, I think we were starting to play some pretty good baseball and knocked off a pretty good team in the playoffs.”
The Musktrats return two all-region players from last season, in addition to basically their entire starting lineup.
“We had two kids all region last year. Micah Zastrow is definitely one of our guys. He hit .366 last year, drove in 12. Noah Johnson was another all-region player we had. He hit around .300, 8 RBIs and he’s kind of a threat to run a little bit for us,” Gregg said. “We got everybody back that played a significant role last year, so we’re hoping to see them take a step in the right direction.”
Gregg said consistency will play a key role for this team this spring.
“We gotta be consistent. … That’s kind of what we didn’t do last year. Maybe we’d pitch well enough but then we wouldn’t hit or we’d be poor defensively,” said Gregg. “I think that teams that can be consistent in baseball are probably going to win more times than not.”
Warner-Ipswich-Northwestern will rely on a large roster to help power a potential run to the state tournament.
“I think your overall expectation should be to build on kind of where we were at last year. I expect more of the same. We’re pretty deep this year, we got 25 guys on the roster,” said W-I-N coach Jeremiah Maxfield. “Having those numbers will be nice, but overall feeling is that you want to make it to state. So, I mean, that’s what we’re really pushing for.”
Out of the 25-player roster, W-I-N has a crew of talented players, including one all-stater and a few all-region players.
“We have some really good returners. I think our three seniors we have this year and then that pretty much entire junior class, we’re really looking for them to be leading,” Maxfield said. “And our all-state returner in Logan Fischbach, all those all-region guys that we had on top of that like Alec Mikkelsen at third and having Chays Mansfield behind the plate and having Braydon Kroll on the hill again.”
There’s also a few other players who will look to earn a spot in the starting lineup.
“Brevan Pitz out of Ipswich. He was hurt pretty much most of last spring, so this is really kind of his first spring season healthy. So, I think we’re going to be looking for him, whether it’s playing up the middle or even on the hill,” Maxfield said. “We have a senior who hasn’t played a ton until this year, Jacob Schmidt. He’s going to have some big shoes to fill on the hitting side, kind of filling in for Devon Fischbach. But he’s made some great improvements the last couple years so, I think you get him on the base path, he’s going to wreak havoc.”
The W-I-N squad will look to rely on its pitching and defense while hoping to improve plate appearances.
“I’d say our best thing last year was our defense and pitching. I think our staff ERA was like a 2.2 last year collectively. I was really pleased with that. Walks to strikeouts ratios were great,” said Maxfield. “I think the big thing to improve on that I’ve seen is we got to hit a little bit better. I think we hit .286 as a team last year which is OK, but I know we can hit better because we have hit better in the past.”
The Clark squad plans to have fun this spring, while still playing with a bit of a chip on its shoulder.
“We’re kind of a team that likes to have fun and I’ve preached that for many of my years coaching that the more fun you can have on the field, normally the better you play,” said Clark coach Chris Bokinskie. “We know what we have. We’ve proven what we’ve had over the last several years. We’ve kind of been an underdog for years up in the Northeast South Dakota area, so just go out there and prove you belong.”
The Dinosaurs return a solid core of players, led by their catcher.
“We return a lot of kids from last year’s high school team, (including) Jakob Steen, who’s a phenomenal catcher. And then we got Cooper Pommer and Ky Vandersnick who are great infielders,” said Bokinskie. “We’ve got Watson Grantham and a couple of outfielders in Damian Severson and Will Hovde. So, we return a nice nucleus of players from last year’s team.”
In order for Clark to take the next steps this season, Bokinskie says it will revolve around being consistent.
“I think the big thing is consistency. That would be the one thing that I would say. We were very streaky last year. There were times where we could bang out like 18 hits a game against a good team,” Bokinskie said, “and then there were times where we were playing a team that we thought we should handle easily and we’d either lose or barely find a way to win. So, I think just consistency.”
