Bluestem baseball blazes a new trail
Most of these guys weren't even born the last time Bluestem made a state tournament appearance in baseball. And most can't remember Bluestem's last winning season.
So when they take the field Friday in Manhattan, it will be more than just a Class 3A tournament game for Bluestem baseball. They want it to represent a new era in Bluestem baseball and athletics, and they are going to soak it in.
Somewhere down the road, they could be considered the team that started a winning tradition at a school known for athletic struggles.
"Our attitude has changed," Bluestem shortstop Matt Womacks said. "My freshman year, my attitude was we would have been happy if we beat one team. If we win one game, we're good with that.
"We accepted the fact that we weren't good at sports. We're going to lose. That's just Bluestem. That's just not good enough for us anymore. We've stepped up."
Bluestem (15-7) enters its 4 p.m. quarterfinal game against Wellsville (20-3) with five more wins than last season. In 2009, Bluestem won three games and one in 2008.
Sometimes, losing games seemed to be beyond the team's control.
"Our freshman year, we had to play a couple of games with eight players," senior third baseman Ryan Bevan said. "It was awful. We would get run-ruled. We had no junior varsity. There was nobody from our school that really wanted to play.
"But then we had a lot of new, committed freshmen come in. Then we got a new weight training teacher. A lot of us started working out a lot more. It has definitely changed at Bluestem as far as sports go."
Womacks remembers how mad he and his teammates were after two early-season losses to Trinity Academy. That feeling was new to this group of athletes — a reason to be upset.
"The next day we came to practice to work hard so we could turn our program around," Womacks said. "It got us to the state tournament this season."
Bluestem hosted a regional this season as a No. 1 seed. Sophomore Cody Easterday is 8-1 with a save. He wasn't unhittable, but the defense behind him made enough plays keep Bluestem ahead most games.
Easterday's consistent pitching and the bats of Womacks (.368 batting average), Justice Edwards (.381) and Cade Minnick (.433, 23 runs, 16 RBIs) formed a winning combination.
"I've watched the kids mature as baseball players," said second-year coach Mark Womacks, Matt's father. "It would have been really easy to quit a few years ago. They hung with it. They stuck it out. It has been exciting to see their inner character."
Bluestem's confidence progressively began to build last season as Mark Womacks began to improve the players' fundamentals and show them that they had the ability to play at a high level.
"Last year we had a few players that really stepped up and started playing better ball," Edwards said. "We knew last year that we could really do something at regionals. When we got to regionals we fell apart and didn't do well. This year we came with the mentality that we're not going to let that happen again."
The team isn't satisfied with qualifying for the 3A tournament. It thinks it can win the whole thing and will be disappointed with an early exit. But that doesn't change the fact that the players are proud of what they have accomplished so far.
"I'm glad I am part of the team that set the bar up there," Bevan said. "We haven't won a regional championship since 1995. When they put the new plaque up there for it, I can tell my kids I was a part of that — I'm part of that."