FERDINAND — Forest Park baseball enters this season as defending sectional champions for the first time since 2003, with the Rangers’ 10-0 run-rule win of Tell City in last year’s championship game ending two decades of anguish.
And with the Rangers making it to the regional championship game against Linton-Stockton last year, here’s their chance to build off their 2022 triumphs with so much coming back.
“Last year, we kind of got the monkey off our back and was able to get a sectional and go into the regional finals,” Rangers coach Jarred Howard said. “We’ve got players in our program that...have committed to playing at the Division I level, we have other players that I think may have an opportunity to play collegiate baseball.
“We return nine or 10 guys that started at some point last year, we return most of our pitching — so we’re looking forward to having a great season,” Howard continued. “Our guys have experienced playing in the postseason, we won a conference title last year, so hopefully all those successes will carry over into this year.”
Howard’s big focus will be on pitching and defense, with lots of returning arms coming back from a year ago. There’s Clayton Weisheit, a senior, who signed to continue his baseball career with the University of Indiana, while son Reid, a junior, is committed to Western Kentucky University. Meanwhile, some fellow pitchers in Reid’s Class of 2024 in Joel Bueltel and Sage Stout give Jarred high hopes for what the Rangers will trot out on the mound this spring.
“Clayton Weisheit’s in the best shape of his life and is throwing the ball extremely well right now,” he said Friday. “Sage Stout and Joel Buetel — Joel threw for us in the regional tournament last year, he was one of our best pitchers on the mound last year, he’s returning and he’s improved, Sage Stout has improved.
“(Sophomore) Elijah Brosmer is a left-handed pitcher that threw a little bit for us last year — he’s come in, he’s improved,” Jarred continued. “We have Reid on the mound, so I think it all starts on the mound and I think we have some starting pitching that’s going to be able to compete with about anybody that we play — so that’s going to help us out moving into this year.”
Jarred noted there can never be too many arms, though Forest Park also graduated a big piece last year in catcher Landon Nalley. He mentioned one returner in junior Carter Fleck, who managed to get some experience behind the plate last season.
Jarred won’t have his older son, Drew, this season, as he’s graduated and now with the University of Evansville’s baseball team, but Reid, Bueltel and Weisheit all saw a lot of at-bats in 2022. Lots of other returning names who’ve had lineup experience include seniors Landen Marks and Bryson Partenheimer, junior Trevor Berg, plus sophomore Tyler Fetter.
“We’re not sure what the hitting lineup’s going to be, but our goal for this year — we’re going to have enough arms on the mound where we’re going to be in ballgames,” he said. “And last year as a team, we hit under .300, we’re going to try to hit .340 as a team. Our focus is we’re going to have to put the ball in play with two strikes, our schedule is difficult — we had probably the hardest schedule we’ve ever had last year, and this year would rival it.”
The Rangers will try to defend their Pocket Athletic Conference championship this year, but they’ll have to play Tecumseh, the Class 1A State Runner-Up in 2021, there are a few Kentucky teams on the schedule, teams like Silver Creek, New Albany and county rival Jasper, plus Castle — whom Jarred said might just have the best pitcher in the state in senior Cameron Tilly.
“We want to be challenged during the season because it only makes us better in the postseason,” he said. “The better arms that we see during the season, the more comfortable we are in the postseason with seeing good arms — because you’re going to see everybody’s best.”
He believes last year’s pitching depth helped the team to a PAC title, but he also knows how difficult the conference is. Jarred believes losing one or two conference games means a team is okay, but losing three or four games means they’re in the mix with everybody else — so some breaks and winning some games a team shouldn’t win will help, too, as he hopes to make another run at the conference championship.
Forest Park began practice this week, with this week focusing a lot on team defense, finding out who will play where, while also trying to get some swings in, too.
The Rangers are scheduled to open their season March 31 at Corydon Central.
“When we go into the first week of the season, we need to be healthy and make sure that our arms are ready to go and we’ll just see what happens,” Jarred said.