Kee baseball team returns full squad of letterwinners for 2016

Despite returning enough letterwinners - nine - to field an entire line-up, the Kee baseball team will still remain relatively young in experience for its 2016 campaign, as just two seniors return to lead this year’s squad. The Hawks graduated five seniors from last season’s team that posted an 11-22 overall record, including a 6-10 mark that placed the Kee diamond dwellers in sixth place in the final Upper Iowa Conference standings.

“We have plenty of letterwinners but are looking more for senior leadership than anything else,” second-year Kee head baseball coach Jim Mauss said. “We need both someone who can be vocal and also lead by example. Someone who hates losing so much that it rubs off on his teammates. I want to coach competitors, players that play 120% no matter what the score or situation is!”

This summer’s senior pair consists of All-Conference Second Team selection Logan Flack, who led the Hawks with 22 runs batted in (RBI) and nine doubles last season, and Ethan Walleser, who posted a team-best 2.93 earned run average (ERA) while logging the fourth most innings on the mound for Kee last season.

Behind that senior pair is a junior class foursome who also return as letterwinners, but only two of them return as consistent contributors from last season. Danny Brennan and Casey Carroll were both sidelined for nearly the entire playing season last summer due to injury, and they will be joined by fellow juniors Evan Whalen and Clay Olson, who was an All-Conference Honorable Mention recipient last season after posting the team’s second most runs scored (18) and third most RBI (12).

“We had one key player that never played a pitch last year and another who got injured the first playing week of the season,” Coach Mauss said in referring to Carroll and Brennan, respectively. “I expect leadership and playing value out of both of these guys. We also have a couple of freshmen and eighth graders who are pushing for a varsity spot. This competition makes everyone better and it will be nice to see who can not only perform at a varsity level but who can lead.”

Sophomores Brock Flack and Tucker Colsch, and freshman Micah Reinke round out this season’s list of letterwinning returnees, with Reinke emerging as a mainstay on the mound for the Hawks as just an eighth grader last season with a team-high 38-1/3 innings pitched while also committing just one defensive error on the way to posting a team-best .989 defensive efficiency among players consistently contributing to the Kee line-up.

Despite that list of returning veterans and leadership numbers, Coach Mauss still has concerns with his team’s overall experience level in several facets. “Our youth and varsity inexperience is definitely a weakness,” he explained. “Also, we did not win a lot last year, so knowing how to win is also a weakness.”

Within that group of five graduated seniors went a vast majority of the Hawks’ remaining leadership from last season, mainly in two multi-year high-end varsity contributors in catcher/shortstop Dylon Peterson and first baseman Ryan Kuhn, both of whom also pitched. “We lose a very talented first baseman who, defensively, was very smooth and always knew what to do in any situation,” Coach Mauss shared. “He was also our number-three stick in the line-up and could hit to all parts of the field. Even though he was a bigger guy, his base running was excellent. He had instincts and knew what to do in all situations. We also need to replace our lead-off hitter who stole bases, played a great shortstop and hit over .300 for us. He also caught for us and was superb defensively and prevented runners from stealing extra bases.”

One significant factor where Coach Mauss already sees his team ahead of last season is having a healthy squad to begin the season with. “A strength is our health, we should have 100% health at the start of the season, which we did not have last year,” he reasoned. “I feel we also have more pitching depth this year and guys who can pitch at the varsity level if need be.”

The second-year coach knows, however, that it takes more than just a full squad to find success on the playing field. “We need more out of our pitchers, as we did not have one guy throw more than 40 innings,” he said. “We need to throw more strikes and avoid giving extra outs. Offensively, we need to get our lead-off batters on base more to put pressure on the opposing defense and play our brand of small ball.”

Helping that cause has been a strong early-season showing by Coach Mauss’ crew. “I’m just happy with the progress during the first week of practice,” the coach explained. “We have quite a few guys that committed themselves during pitchers and catchers time and also in the weight room. If we can make strides throughout the month of May like we did the first week, I will be happy.”

Those strides, whether early or throughout the entire season, are all focused on the same prize, no matter what team is taking the field. “Goals are always the same: A conference title and state title,” Coach Mauss remarked. “No excuses, no exceptions.”

Coach Mauss sees that conference goal as being very attainable, as a majority of last season’s top All-Conference honorees within the Upper Iowa Conference have now graduated. “I think our conference is really equal, top to bottom,” he said. “The three teams that shared the title last year (Clayton Ridge/Central, North Fayette Valley and South Winneshiek) all lost key pieces but are good programs and will compete again this year. I truly feel that we should be in the mix. We need to worry about us and conference will fall into place. Conference games are important, but all games are important at Kee High, and we look to make a huge step not only in conference play but overall.”

The Hawks were scheduled to get this season’s quest underway with a full slate of games this week that were to begin Tuesday, May 24 at home against Decorah. The Hawks will then travel to Maquoketa Valley Wednesday, May 25 before hosting their own Shooky Fink Tournament this Saturday, May 28, details of which can be found elsewhere on this same Sports page in a shaded box.