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McCook Juniors seek success in district baseball meet
District tournament time is a renewal for all teams.
Every team entering district meets starts with a new record and renewed hope for success, no matter how good or bad the regular season played out. Every team in a district tournament probably harbors feelings that they can get hot, win every district tournament game and earn a trip to state.
Nebraska American Legion baseball teams are experiencing those good feelings as district tournament action for the Juniors division (players ages 15 and 16 years) gets underway this week at seven sites across the Cornhusker state.
The McCook First Central Bank Juniors will compete in the Area 6 district meet at Lexington. First-round games are scheduled to begin Thursday, July 15, at Lexington's Optimist Complex.
McCook has drawn the sixth seed in the eight-team area tournament field. The Juniors will face third-seed Shelton-Gibbon Thursday at 4 p.m.
Other first-round games Thursday include top seed Broken Bow and eighth-seed Gothenburg at 10 a.m., fourth seed Holdrege vs. fifth-seed Minden at 1 p.m., and second-seed Cozad vs. No. 7 Lexington at 7 p.m.
The McCook/Shelton-Gibbon winner meets the Lexington-Cozad winner Friday, July 16, at 7 p.m. in the winner's bracket semifinals. The McCook/Shelton-Gibbon loser meets the Lexington-Cozad loser in an elimination game Friday at 1 p.m.
The district competition continues through Tuesday, July 20. The Area 6 tournament champion qualifies for the Class B Juniors State Tournament at O'Neill July 24-28.
Improved in second half of season
After a slow start, the McCook Juniors have been playing well in the second half of the season under first-year head coach Austin Larson. The Juniors split a double-header at Lexington last Sunday in a final tune-up for the area tournament. The Juniors topped Lex, 10-2, in the opener, then dropped a 10-9 decision in the nightcap in a game called after five innings due to time limit.
In Sunday's opening win, Coach Larson said Drew Bredvick pitched a strong game for McCook, and Larson was pleased with his team's run production.
Coach Larson described Sunday's second game as "interesting," with McCook falling behind by six runs before rallying to take a 9-7 lead. The hosts then tallied three runs in the bottom of the fifth before the umpires called the game due to the time limit.
"It was kind of unfortunate that we reached the time limit. It was close," Larson said. "The kids showed a lot of heart coming back like that."
Unknown opponent
The Juniors have not seen Shelton-Gibbon this season, and Coach Larson said he knows very little about Thursday's opponent.
"I didn't even know they were in our district until we received the tournament schedule," he said. "It will be interesting to see how they are. They've got to be pretty decent if they're the third seed in the tournament."
The Area 6 meet is double-elimination, and the McCook coach hopes his team can continue the strong play they have exhibited late in the season.
"Just keep playing like we have been," Larson said, when asked about the key to his team's success at districts. "We hadn't seen Lex at all this year until last weekend, and we played them two good games. We can play good games against teams that we haven't seen.
"I just want the kids to go in like they have been playing this second half of the season, and really swing the bats, get on base, draw some walks and play good defense, and we'll be just fine."
Larson plans to start Cameron Burkey on the mound Thursday against Shelton-Gibbon, with no other definite plans for his pitching staff at districts.
"After that we'll see how it goes," Larson said.
The McCook coach pointed to Gavin Harsh and Lucas Post as two of his team's leaders at the plate.
"Gavin Harsh has really been swinging the bat well," Larson said. "Lucas Post has been pounding the ball. They are two hitters that are getting great at-bats, really working the count, getting good hits, putting runners in scoring position and bringing runners in."
Lexington results
The Juniors got off to a great start in Sunday's opening game at Lexington. McCook scored four runs, starting with Harsh's leadoff double, and an RBI single by Burkey. the Juniors added single runs in the fourth and sixth innings to lead 6-2. Harsh singled and scored on Josh Escher's single in the fourth, and McCook's run in the sixth came without a hit.
The locals pushed across four runs in the top of the seventh, with hits by Burkey, Cash Bortner and James Kain.
Bredvick scattered five hits in the complete-game win, with one walk, one hit batsman and nine strikeouts.
In Sunday's second game, McCook trailed 7-1 after two innings. The Juniors tallied three runs in the third without the benefit of a hit. McCook added a single run in the fourth followed by four runs in the fifth on walks by Jake Ruppert, Tristan Thomas, Chris Hoffman, and Bredvick got aboard on a passed ball after he struck out, followed by Harsh's single.
Trailing 9-8, Lexington scored a pair of runs in the bottom of the fifth on a hit batsman, a McCook error and a base hit.
Josh Escher started on the mound and went 3 1/3 innings for McCook. Cameron Burkey took the loss in 1 1/3 innings of relief work.
The Juniors dropped a 9-7 decision at Kearney July 7. McCook trailed 7-1 after three innings, then rallied with a five-run outburst in the fourth, highlighted by Clint Beguin's double and a single by Cameron Burkey. Beguin doubled and scored in the fifth for McCook's final run to pull within 8-7, and Kearney added a run in the bottom of the sixth.
McCook got two runners on base in the seventh before Kearney ended the threat to gain the win.
Wide-open district
Coach Larson feels the Area 6 tournament is balanced, with no dominant team.
"Broken Bow is the one seed, and we played them earlier in the year," he said. "We lost both games, but we've seen them, we know what they look like. They're definitely a beatable team.
"Cozad is the two seed. They've been hot this season, they've been playing good baseball. We've played them within two runs both times we faced them. They're definitely beatable. There's not an outstanding team in the district. Going in, it's really anybody's tournament to take."
Larson thinks his McCook squad has a great shot to make some noise at the district meet.
"They're really looking forward to it. They have a great attitude going in," he said. "The first half of the season, I didn't know what it was going to be like, but they've really turned it around the second half of the season.
"They want to win bad, and I have no doubt they will go out there and give it their all and see what we can come up with."
Larson wants to bring the Juniors program back to dominance after a few down years.
"We definitely had success in the early 1990s. The program, every year, they were winning district championships," he said. "We've been down for a couple years, but we would love to get back to that level, whether it be this year or next year.
We're trying to build the program back up to where we get to the days where every year McCook is expected to be in the top two in the district."