Flyers just needed base runners to win

By: 
J. Patrick Eaken

The Northern Buckeye Conference championship Lake baseball team did not always need base hits to score. They just needed to get guys on base.

That is because the Flyers (23-6 overall, 13-1 NBC) stole 119 bases and only got thrown out nine times. Coach Greg Wilker says team stolen bases are not a record kept by his program, but it has to challenge any other season he is aware of.

“We are pretty athletic. We run really well,” Wilker said. “That was a big part of our success this year. It was a team effort, The big kid who was the player of the year, (junior outfielder) Cam Hoffman, he was 17-for-17. He is like 6-4, 220, so he is a big kid who just runs well. 

“The (senior shortstop Tyler) Saffran kid, our quarterback from football, had 18. But it was balanced all the way across, so it is not like we had anybody with 40 or anything, but we had nine kids who all could run really well.”

Seven players had double digit steals, but no one came close to the individual record set by Tim Decant (31). Wilker says when opponents lined up in the other dugout, they knew what was coming.

“They knew we were going to run. That is hard to stop,” Wilker said. “There are some good catchers in the league, but we were able to run. We bunt quite a bit and put pressure on the defense.”

Hoffman says stealing bases could be considered a work of art, adding that Wilker and his staff have taught them well.

“That is a big thing we work on in practice a lot. We also go into every game with a lot of effort and energy. That is also a big part of our game plan is to always come out ready to play, 110 percent effort all the time,” Hoffman said. 

“We are just a very athletic team, and everyone, all 13 guys, we can all steal bases. Really, it is all about our coaches and how they have taught us how to steal them. It is all about timing — that is what they taught us, really — to go and when not to go.” 

Lake senior pitcher Jaxon Delventhal, who will pitch next year at Owens Community College, loved his team’s speed on the bases because it led to runs and gave him a cushion when he got to the mound.

 “Our base running was phenomenal this year. It put us up early,” said Delventhal, who relies primarily on his fastball, change-up and curveball.

That does not mean the Flyers did not have power or could do other things well. Wilker was blessed with a complete team. Because Lake’s field faces the opposite direction that most fields face, it helped this spring when the east wind was coming off Lake Erie.

“We actually had more home runs this year than we have in the past, too, and we had more east winds out of our place a couple times, and a few times on the road we had the wind blowing out, so that made it nice too,” Wilker said.

Winning the league was still a challenge, especially since Eastwood started out on fire, ranked in the state, and finished 26-4. It was a 9-8 win over the Eagles that sealed it for Lake.

“Both Eastwood games were pretty big wins for us as well as the Otsego games were big for us,” Hoffman said. “Otsego was projected to win our league and we just went into that game with a ton of confidence that we could go head-to-head with them and just played our hearts out in that game to prove who we are and show them what we are about. The second Eastwood game, when we were down by three and we ended up coming back to win the game, that was such a big game for us.”

Wilker says he never would have guessed that his team could get through the league schedule with just one loss, a 3-2 setback at the hands of Woodmore.

“Early on I thought it was going to be a year when if you were 10-4 or 11-3 might get you a share of the title,” Wilker said. “We played well in the league and the big thing is we finished strong. Before we lost to Archbold (tournament), we had won 10 in a row at that point.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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