Tom Keegan: Lions quickly get back to work

photo by: Mike Yoder

The Lawrence High bench celebrates a run scored by teammate Joe Harms Thursday, during the Lions' game against the Shawnee Mission East Lancers at LHS.

Nobody disputes that Shawnee Mission East is the team to beat in next month’s Class 6A state baseball playoffs, a feat that requires winning five games in a row and usually means knocking off one or both of Lawrence’s public high schools, never an easy challenge.

The Lancers played both Free State and Lawrence High this past week and split, defeating the Firebirds, 2-0, with ace lefty Joey Wentz on the mound and losing to LHS, 5-4, with Arkansas-bound right-hander Zebulon Vermillion making the start. Luke Anderson, SME’s shortstop and third pitcher, is bound for Missouri.

Lions coach Brad Stoll knows all about baseball’s unwritten rules, such as never make the first or third out of an inning at third base. He has rewritten them and boiled his rules into two that are written in the dugout: 1. Play with risk; 2. So what? Next pitch.

“When you’re seeing an arm like that, your chances are probably fewer to truly barrel-up a ball because he’s pretty legit,” Stoll said of Vermillion. “You just have to find a way to manufacture some runs, and our 7, 8 and 9 holes yesterday were as big a part as anything.”

Ivan Hollins, Joe Harms and Alexander Guy made up the bottom third of a batting order that from the top reads Reese Carmona, Andrew Stewart, Brad Kincaid, Devin Lauts, Parker Kirkpatrick and Jacob Unruh, a nice blend of sophomores, juniors and seniors.

The Lions were back to work Friday, forced to take batting practice indoors because of the rain.

“All my message today was, if this defines our season, then I’m going to be disappointed,” Stoll said. “We play Rockhurst on Monday. They don’t care that we beat them. We play Shawnee Mission Northwest on Tuesday. They don’t care that we beat them. It was fun. I’m proud as heck of ’em for the way they fought their way to a win, but if this is the best moment of our season, it’s been a disappointment.”

For Free State and Lawrence, state titles are always the goal in baseball. Three of the past 10 6A titles have been won by Lawrence schools: Free State won it in 2006, LHS in 2009, Free State last spring.

“There’s certainly enough pitching to get to the state tournament and do some damage, and there’s certainly enough offense to do it,” Stoll said. “We just need to get them both synced up.”

The Lions started the season 1-4 and improved to 8-7 with Thursday’s comeback victory.

Free State (12-3) has had consistently strong pitching led by the trio of Hunter Gudde, Trevor Munsch and Aaron Funk. All three of the Firebirds’ losses have come by the same score, 2-0.

If Shawnee Mission East is the No. 1 team in 6A, then Free State has to be considered 1A. Lawrence just beat No. 1 and will have two cracks at 1A, at 5:30 p.m. May 9 at FSHS and at 7 p.m. May 12 at Hoglund Ballpark.

“Our whole message, no matter who we play is, you’re not playing who’s in the other dugout,” Stoll said. “Our whole thing is, you’re just playing the baseball. Now, sometimes the baseball’s coming in at 88, 89, or 72, 73 (mph), but still you’re reacting to the ball and controlling what you can control, whether it’s Shawnee Mission East or Free State or whoever you’re playing.”

Sometimes the baseball has a mind of its own and bounces in funny ways. Some of those bounces will end seasons prematurely, even if luck has something to do with it. Nearly every year, at least one of Lawrence’s two high school baseball teams remains standing when the field shrinks to four teams. That’s not luck. That’s consistent excellence from a strong baseball town.