Santa Fe Trail High senior Corey Wells is quick to boast that his fastball has been clocked in the upper-80s – and that it continues to get faster.

With that tidbit in hand, Wells, the Journal-World’s 2007 All-Area Baseball Player of the Year, already is thinking about playing Division I baseball after a year at Neosho County Community College.

“Hopefully they’ll help me out increasing my speed,” said Wells about getting just one year at Neosho since he already has earned 42 college credits during high school. “Hopefully, get me up into the 90s, to where I can get a little more looks from the D-I schools. I’ll hopefully be able to get up there in their top six in their pitching rotation and hopefully get seen by some D-I schools or maybe some other scouts.”

If the radar guns don’t impress colleges, then maybe they’ll admire his 4-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio or his 0.47 ERA – which tied a school record for lowest ERA in a season.

Even if a sub-1.00 ERA doesn’t stick out, how about throwing a no-hitter against Perry-Lecompton this year?

Whatever scouts remember from Wells’ senior year, they must take into consideration that his 4-2 record – three of the wins being shutouts – was in part because of a struggling Chargers team.

“Pitching and defense wins games. We had our pitching most of the year, but it’s the defense that let us down,” Santa Fe Trail coach Brent Mumford said. “Like his two losses, those are all unearned runs.”

One of the right-hander’s losses was to Class 4A state champ Kansas City Ward. Ward scored six unearned runs in that game.

The other was a 3-2 loss to Mill Valley where the damage was done in the seventh inning – again, none of the runs was earned.

“One was a strikeout for the third out, and the catcher threw it to first, and the first baseman dropped it, and a guy on third got home and scored,” said Wells, referring to the game against Mill Valley. “In that game, I had 14 strikeouts against them and we still lost 3-2. In the games that we won, we scored less than two runs. So they were shut out or scored just one run on me.”

Despite receiving an offer from the United States Military Academy at West Point (Army) to play baseball, Wells still decided to join the community college team that won the Jayhawk Conference championship in 2006 with a school-record 44 wins on the season.

If the past is any sign as to his chances of joining the Kansas University squad – which Mumford said has been Wells’ dream – he need only look back to 2003. Former Neosho players John Furnagalli and Andy Rebar joined the Jayhawks that year.

“When you get down to an elite program like Neosho, they’re going to have players back them up,” Mumford said. “Just like at any level there are going to be errors. … You get a good defense behind any good pitcher and they’re going to win a lot of games.”