Coaches focus on positives as season ends

RANDOLPH – Randolph’s Legion baseball seasons have come to an end and the teams’ records don’t reflect the effort and improvement put into practice and into each game all season long.

The Juniors finished the season with a 0-11 record.

Coaches Eric Brown and Drew English see it as a learning experience.

“The Juniors team was a lot like the Legion team last year and the Legion team improved a lot from last year to this year” English said.

Development was the leading focus for the coaches and that’s what they were most happy about with the Juniors.

“They (Juniors Team) improved as the year went on with how young they were they developed how we wanted them to,” Brown said.

Lots of reps, lots of reps, lots of reps – that was the mantra to keep improving, English said.

“The main thing we wanted to see from the juniors was development and having a lot of reps some even had reps on the Legion team and helped our Legion pitching staff at the end of the year and in the tournament,” he said.

And reps in the offseason will be the focus on continuing player development.

Even with a winless record, the coaches found bright spots in each game.

Brown said he was especially impressed in the team’s tournament game against Crofton.

“Earlier in the season I feel we would have been blown out but, in the tournament, we competed hard and played well against a team that finished third in state,” he said.

English said he was impressed with the team’s ability to fight in every game, no matter the score. He was also pleased with some of the Junior players stepping up to help with pitching at the end of the season.

The final stats for the junior’s team has Matt Gubbels with the highest batting average on the team with a .322. Gage Jensen also had a .300 Batting average and had two extra base hits on the season. Lucas Bartles led the team with eight stolen bases and right behind him with seven stolen bases were Gavin Wortman and Jaylen Junck.

As a team the juniors finished with a .157 Batting average, four doubles , one home run, 22 RBIs, 35 Runs, 43 walks and 48 stolen bases. Pitching for the Juniors was led by Ryan Engel who posted a team best seven ERA. He also had seven strikeouts to eight walks. Logan Lienemann led the team in strikeouts with 14. As a team the Juniors finished with a 16.8 ERA and 45 strikeouts.

A similar storyline could be told about the Senior Legion team, finishing the season with a 4-10 record.

Brown said he was proud of how the team finished each game.

“They competed every game,” he said. “Last year was a struggle sometimes even finishing seven innings but this year we competed every game even when the team might’ve been more talented than us. We won games we should have won and competed in the games that were more challenging.”

English said the numbers speak for themselves.

“We saw a 200 percent improvement from the previous season. Last year we started with six guys and now we have 24 players,” he said.

Both coaches are hopeful many of those players will return for another season.

“We need to come back with the mentality that summer is baseball season if we can improve over the offseason and come back with a mentality to compete, we can compete in the area tournament,” English said.

Players were able to point out some success on the season as well – coming up with four wins on the season over just two in the previous one.

Shaw Backer said the team’s defense could use the most improvement.

“We just need to relax and play the game,” he said.

Staying focused through the season will be key, Aiden Gubbels said.

Both coaches and both players said the highlight of the 2023 season was Carter Korth’s diving catch to beat O’Neill-Neligh in the team’s first win of the year. Another matchup against O’Neill-Neligh was a highlight – when Randolph got the comeback win in the seventh inning and beat them for the second time.

Collyn Beal was a major driving force all year for Randolph’s offense as he finished the year with a team high .441 batting average and also led the team in stolen bases with 21. Four players also had a batting average above .300. Those players were Carter Korth, Shaw Backer, Aiden Gubbels and Gabe Wortman. Shaw Backer Led the team in RBIs also with 12 RBIs on the season.

As a team, the Randolph Legion Team finished the year with a team combined .276 Batting Average, 18 doubles, one triple, 68 RBIs, 102 runs, 126 stolen bases and 92 walks.

Aiden Gubbels was a solid pitcher for the team with a 7.528 ERA, 16 strikeouts and a team high 17.2 innings pitched. Kaleb Gardner led the team with 24 strikeouts and had a 9.068 ERA.

As a team, Randolph finished with a 11.64 ERA and 91 strikeouts.

Brown said the future looks bright for the Randolph Legion program.

“To me, we need to see how many numbers we get back next year. It is tough to lose the older guys that started the program back up. And we need to get younger kids invested in baseball and to compete. We are not far from competing with every team in our district,” he said.

English said his ultimate goal is for Randolph to be known for its baseball program.

“Kids need to keep going out for baseball to keep the program running. From any age, we want kids to go out for baseball and to learn about baseball and develop their skills,” he said.

Coaches and players are thankful for the boost financially by many donors and sponsors this season.

“Without them there would be no baseball team in Randolph,” Brown said.