By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
For the first time in 17 years the Lamar baseball team won a district championship last spring.
Head coach Thad Lundine termed the season a “welcome surprise.”
“We had a lot of young kids playing in some key roles as freshmen and sophomores that really stepped up and played a big part to the experience we had coming back,” Lundine said.
The Tigers went 12-9 and beat El Dorado Springs in the Class 3 District 13 tournament after winning in extra innings in the semifinals. Eventual state champion Blair Oaks ended Lamar’s season in the sectional round.
Lamar returns at least eight starters from that team but must replace catcher Duncan Gepner, who earned second team All-Big 8 honors after batting .327 and posting an OPS of .905. He scored 19 runs and led the team with 14 stolen bases while also ranking third in innings pitched.
“He will be missed,” Lundine said. “He was one of those kids that really made a big impact on the program in his time here and has taken it on to the next level to play at Drury this year.”
CLICK HERE FOR LINKS TO ALL THE SPRING SPORTS PREVIEWS
The Tigers do return three players who earned All-State or All-Conference honors, highlighted by junior Case Tucker, a second team All-State infielder who also earned first team Big 8 honors and honorable mention All-Conference honors as a pitcher.
The shortstop racked up nine extra base hits, including three home runs, and led the team in runs (24) while batting .456. He also led the team with 41.1 innings pitched and 56 strikeouts.
When Tucker is on the mound expect to see senior Wyatt Hull at shortstop; he was a second team Big 8 utility player who clubbed 10 doubles and batted .371 with a .945 OPS. He also pitched and allowed just one earned run in 12.1 innings of work with 14 strikeouts.
Junior Rylan Wooldridge will return at first base, sophomore Robert Lawrence returns at third base after starting all but one game there as a freshman, senior Sam Mather returns in left field, sophomore Mason Gastel returns in center field and junior Cade Griffith returns in right field.
Wooldridge batted .291 last season and was tied for third on the team with 14 RBI’s. Mather, a “very good defensive kid,” also scored 15 runs and stole five bases. Gasfel was a .255 hitter who also pitched a few innings.
That leaves question marks at second base and behind the plate.
Senior Donte Stahl was a second team All-Conference infielder who contributed scored 18 runs and drove in 19 while batting .312. He was second on the team in innings pitched with 30.2 and added 35 strikeouts and a 2.95 ERA. He’s still recovering from a knee injury.
Junior Noah Osborn filled in at second after Stahl was hurt but only saw action in six games. Tucker Torbeck, a sophomore, also played in six games and filled in at catcher and designated hitter late in the season after Stahl’s injury.
Sophomore Stetson Wiss played in four games late in the season and is also trying to earn some time.
“We’ve got a whole bunch of young kids that realistically could steal somebody’s spot,” Lundine said. “We’ve got some really good athletes in the freshman and sophomore classes.”
He said defense is a big strength of Lamar’s and sometimes that’s all the team works on at practice.
“Kids ask me many times if we can take some BP and I say that’s what seven o’clock in the morning is for,” he said. “We spend a lot of time working on our defensive schemes and scenarios. We spend a lot of time on that. We’re not a bad hitting team. We’ve got some really good hitters, some guys who need to figure out how to get themselves on, get hit by a pitch or whatever it takes to get our offense going but our defense should and always will be a focus of mine.”
That defense is also a big question mark, in a way.
“Who’s going to shock us and have a chance to take somebody’s spot?” Lundine said. “It would be easy if you looked at the roster and our kids are smart – there’s eight or nine kids who have started coming back – it’d be easy to go, ‘I guess I’m a JV player this year’ and I haven’t seen that out of them. I’ve got kids who are really trying to find a way to get into the lineup. That will be the big question mark. If somebody steps up we could be an even stronger team than we thought we were at the beginning.”
As far as pitching goes, the Tigers appear to be in good shape. They return players who threw nearly 90 innings last year, 75 percent of the innings they played. One potential newcomer to the pitching staff is junior Baylee Wright who has pitched extensively at the junior varsity level the last two years.
“This summer he really came on, understanding his command during games and figuring out ways to get himself more playing time,” Lundine said.
Lundine said the team’s goal is to just get better each week and not get hung up on wins and losses early in the season. He noted the Tigers took some “pretty bad beatings” at times last year but were in a good position by the end of the season.
“Our hopes are to vie for a conference title and get back into the championship running in conference and districts,” he said. “Now that we’ve got a little experience in the postseason we’ll be more prepared for the playoffs as we go forward through districts.”
