High School Baseball: Iola Mustangs
After a year of sitting on their 8-1 loss to Nickerson in the opening round of last years 4A-II state tournament, the 20-2 Iola Mustangs are pumped, primed and ready to roll as they head into this years state tournament in Salina.
Theyve been excited but really its been business as usual, head coach Mark Percy said. They know what they need to do. Whether theyll do it or not, well see, but I think theyre ready, mentally and everything else.
The Mustangs open the tournament with Wichita Trinity Academy, 18-3,with losses to Cheney (the sixth-seed in the 3A state tournament), Clearwater and Wichita-Collegiate.
The Knights have a team batting average of .416 and a slugging percentage of .574 as a team. Theyre led by Andrew Dettwiler who has a .485 average on 32 hits, including Trinitys only home run so far this season
ON THE mound, the Knights will most likely throw Kasan Deweese, whos rounded up 39 strikeouts in 32.1 innings while allowing 24 hits, 16 walks and five earned runs.
Hes their number one guy that well see I think has pretty good stuff, Percy said. He has some pop on his fastball and from what I understand has a pretty above average curveball so well have to be focused up there on what were doing at the plate and hit strikes when we get them.
For the Mustangs, itll be their pitching that gets them through, led by junior 4A-II Pitcher of the Year Derek By-croft.
Bycroft has been smothering on the mound with a 0.50 ERA with 23 hits, 14 walks and three earned runs. Hes pitched in nine games and has a 7-0 record with two games falling to a no decision.
Behind him, senior Isaac Vink, sophomore Cal Leonard and senior Ethan Tavarez round out what has to be one of the strongest pitching staffs in the state.
Having that number of guys is good because if someone is struggling early we can go get them and save them for another time, Percy said. But somebody has to come through, and I think they know that. They have confidence so well just see who does come through and what we can do with them. We count on our pitchers and our defense a lot.
The Mustangs biggest problem late in the season has been their hitting. Despite having a .359 average as a team, Iolas bats have been sluggish. They only scored four runs against a Prairie View team that allowed the Mustangs to score 11 runs on them twice earlier this season. They also struggled to hit in the regional championship game versus Girard where they scored one run on four hits.
While the Mustangs pitching is good, they will need more production from the plate if they want to make a deep run.
Shutouts on the state level are hard to come by.
However, thats something Coach Percy knows as well and since regionals, his team has been hard at work trying to get its hitting back in early and mid-season form.
Earlier in the season we did more live hitting in practice and that really worked for us, Percy said. With the quality of pitching that we have, having our hitters go against someone like Derek or Isaac is about the level of competition theyre going to find in any game theyll play and maybe better. But in the meat of the season, we had doubleheaders twice a week so we couldnt do that as much and thats when our hitting struggled. Since regionals ended, live pitching and live hitting are what weve done.
And it seems to have been working. Coaches and players have noticed the consistency and pop in their bats are back.
