At the beginning of this baseball season, I asked OBI assistant baseball Coach Glenn Phoenix about his predictions for the season. He looked grim. Things didn't look good. Many experienced players had chosen to not return for the year. Hitting looked average, defense more so. There was no catcher at all. With the exception of a couple of experienced pitchers, the season gave little reason for much optimism.
Tonight, Oneida goes against Rockcastle County for the district finals, with an assured place in the region, and a 26-2 record. A record that includes not one, but three stunning victories over arch-rival Clay County, a public school with over 1,000 students and a perennial baseball contender. It has been a season we will savor and remember for many years to come.
The compiling of a season like this is an impressive achievement for coaches Jay Stratton, Glenn Phoenix, Mike Contraras and Mike Waslewski, who really don't know what hand they will be dealt season to season. Getting students to return is a challenge at any boarding school, and last year's star may be playing three states away this year. Baseball comes at the end of the school year and the student body that began the year is never identical to the one ending it. And because of OBI's policy that any student can play on a sport as long as they obey the rules, the team may be full of unknowns, some with no experience at all.
It is that policy that blessed our team this year, with newcomers who filled the spots and rose to the occasion. Typical of that was Oneida senior catcher Mike Daley.
A senior from Florida, Mike is not known as an athlete, but as a genuinely nice guy. But this year he found himself on the baseball field with the catcher's mitt, and the daily attentions of the OBI coaches, particularly Coach Waslewski. With three talented pitchers, OBI needed a catcher, and Mike rose to the occasion, improving game by game and keeping the errors to a minimum. Most of OBI's victories were low scoring games, a sign that the catcher is doing his job.
OBI Assistant Athletic Director Harvey Travis pointed out that in many ways Daley was typical of why OBI's athletic program is unusual. "At any other school, a kid like Mike wouldn't even be playing ball. Here he is not only playing and contributing, he's outstanding."
The same could be said of Sophomore Joey Jaspersen. A staff kid with a solid glove and consistent bat, Joey would probably have never had a chance at varsity play at a large public school, but at OBI he not only had his chance to play, but to start and to excel. Other players, like Richard Burns and Ryan Young, fill the same profile.
Building on the outstanding pitching and bats of Tim Phoenix and Chris Kendrick, the team found an outstanding third pitcher in Femi Ogun from NYC. Add to this solid play from Cliff Godbold, Joe Jaspersen, Boo Woods, Levi Bowling and Zach Siler- all local boys-and good contributions from boarding students like Wes Deeson and David Trimble and you have a surprising season.
What about those victories over Clay County? It's unlikely that OBI has defeated Clay County in a varsity sport three times in any season in history. the 7-6, 16-2, 3-2 victories were particularly sweet. Since most of our players don't have families nearby, the OBI staff and students make up the cheering section, and even after school was out and the baseball season continued, there was still two buses full of fans to celebrate the victory over Clay in the district semis.
Even the coaches are unusual. Coach Stratton is a preacher, Coach Phoenix is a Chiropractor. Both came to Oneida to teach, one Geography and Bible, the other Biology. Clearly, it is the thrill of a lifetime for all the coaches to have a part in such an amazing season.
How will the season end? No one knows. The competition at this level is the kind OBI rarely sees, but this team has always exceeded expectations and found a way to win. Even if the season ends in the regionals, this team has given OBI- and themselves- a wonderful gift: pride.
It is a by-word in OBI sports, that our kids sometimes have trouble holding their heads up and seeing themselves as the equals of their larger, more successful, more aggressive opponents. We are expected to act like "little brother," and sometime we do. In the last game with Clay County, Catcher Mike Daley tagged a batter out on a dropped third strike pitch. He tagged the batter aggressively. The batter glared at him with obvious displeasure.
Michael held his head up, and looked right back.
Boys, we're proud of you.