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ARCHIVES - Spring 2010 |
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Super-State First Team | Logan Ehlers, Honorary Captain Super-State Second Team plus Class A and Class B All-State
All Nebraska First Team - Article All Nebraska First Team, Class A and Class B All-State All Nebraska Honorable Mention All-Metro Conference and All-River Cities Conference Teams
Stories are listed in reverse chronological order (newest at top) |
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Ehlers Repeats as Gatorade Player of the Year June 2, 2010 |
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In its 25th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company, in collaboration with ESPN RISE, today announced the selection of Logan Ehlers of Nebraska City High School as its 2009-10 Gatorade Nebraska Baseball Player of the Year. | More | |
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Millard West Duo Heads List of Coaches' All-Metro Selections May 25, 2010 |
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Millard West High School’s AJ Ladwig and Kyle Kruger headline a list of twenty-eight Metro Conference baseball players selected to receive post-season honors by the league’s varsity baseball coaches. Ladwig, a junior right-hander who compiled an 8-1 record, and Kruger, a speedy senior centerfielder who hit .443 and scored 52 runs for the 32-5 Wildcats, were unanimous selections on the fourteen-player All-Metro First Team. The Wildcats led the way with four First-Team honorees, followed by Millard South with three. The two Papillion schools – Papillion-LaVista and Class A State Champion Papillion-LaVista South – each placed two players on the First-Team roster. | More | |
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Collin-Orcutt All-Star Game Roster Announced May 10, 2010 |
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Forty Metro Area ballplayers from the graduating class of 2010 have been selected to participate in the 38th Annual Collin-Orcutt All-Star Game to be played on Sunday, May 23rd, at Seymour Smith Park, 69th and Harrison Streets, beginning at 5:00 pm. | More | |
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Ehlers Surpasses 500 Career Strikeouts with Win Against Gretna May 5, 2010 |
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Nebraska City senior Logan Ehlers put the exclamation point on a brilliant high school pitching career Tuesday night by recording the 500th strikeout of his four-year varsity career. The milestone was achieved in the top of the seventh inning of the Pioneers' last regular season game at Clemmy Holmes field as Nebraska City defeated the Gretna Dragons, ranked second in Class B, by a score of 6-0. It was the seventh win of the season for Ehlers as the Pioneers improved to 17-5. | More | |
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Creighton Prep Honors Alumnus / Legion Sponsor Good May 5, 2010 |
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Ehlers On Threshold of Career Milestone, Faces Gretna Today May 4, 2010 |
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Nebraska high school baseball fans have grown accustomed to the eye-popping numbers produced by Nebraska City's superlative southpaw Logan Ehlers on the pitcher’s mound over the past three years. But, the Husker recruit is now on the verge of accomplishing something that should generate yet even more amazement among baseball fans. As Ehlers heads into today's start against Gretna, he needs only eleven strikeouts over the remainder of the season to achieve a total of 500 for his high school career.
Averaging 17.4 strikeouts per game in seven starts this season, Ehlers has a good shot at breaking the 500 threshold in today's 4:30 game against the Class B #2 Dragons (12-5) at Steinhart Park. Achieving the 500 mark this season would mean that Ehlers must equal last year's record-setting season total of 161 strikeouts, a mark that he is almost certain to surpass since he will get at least one start in upcoming district tournament competition and possibly one or more at state. Ehlers currently has 150 strikeouts in 12 appearances for the 2010 season with a record of six wins, one loss and four saves. His season totals also include a 6 1/3 inning no-decision relief performance in which he struck out eighteen. He earned his fourth save last night against Douglas County West, striking out four of five batters faced with fifteen pitches.
Ehlers and his Nebraska City teammates have
compiled a 16-5 season record and will host the
District B-3 Tournament this weekend at
Steinhart Park as the #1 seed. The Pioneers have
earned a first-round bye and will play the
winner of Friday’s 4:30 pm game between
Bennington and Wahoo in a semifinal game at noon
on Saturday. The winner of Monday’s 6:00 pm
district championship game will advance to the
state tournament which begins May 15. The Class
B state tournament field will consist of the
winners of the four district tournaments plus
four Wild Card teams. Nebraska City is currently
ranked #2 in the Wild Card standings and has a
good chance of playing in the state tournament
even if upset in districts. |
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Wild Card Points Up for Grabs in Last Weekend Before Seeding April 22, 2010 |
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With Tuesday's deadline for seeding districts looming, thirty-one teams will be engaged in tournament action this weekend in a final effort to improve their chances of a favorable seeding in districts. Games played through next Tuesday, April 27 will be the last ones that will count for assigning teams to district tournaments and for seeding the teams within those tournaments. Teams that are currently positioned for favorable seeding in district tournaments will be looking to hold on to their advantage while those further down in the standings will make a final push to get a higher seed in one of the six tournaments going on this weekend. And, of course, the weatherman could have a lot to do with what happens this weekend as well. Heavy thunderstorms and up to an inch and half of rain are forecast for tonight, and rain showers are likely to hang around throughout the weekend. | More | |
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Three Conference Tournaments Dominate Weekend Schedule April 14, 2010 |
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Thirty of the forty-eight varsity baseball programs in the state will be in action in three conference tournaments which begin tomorrow. The sixteen-team Metropolitan High School Activities Association baseball tournament will be played Thursday, Friday and Saturday at four locations in the Omaha Metro area, the eight-team Heartland Athletic Conference tournament will take place Thursday and Friday at two Lincoln locations, and six teams will compete in the field of the Eastern Midlands Conference tournament to be played Thursday and Friday in Elkhorn. | More | |
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Bradley's Bircher Named Missouri Valley Pitcher of the Week April 13, 2010 |
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Bircher is expected to start Friday night against Creighton as the Bluejays go to Peoria for a three-game weekend series against the Braves. Millard West alum Jonas Dufek is the projected starter for the Bluejays. While at Roncalli, Bircher helped his American Legion squad to back-to-back Nebraska Class "B" state championships in 2007 and 2008. The Braves are coached by Elvis Dominguez, a former Creighton player and coach who also coached at Omaha Central from 1988 through 1992. | Bradley Braves baseball | |
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Northwest Softball Player Contributes on Huskies Baseball Team April 9, 2010 |
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NSAA Board of Control to Vote This Week on State Tournament Bracket Proposal April 7, 2010 |
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Update: The Board of Control approved the proposed change to the state tournament bracket. The six-member Board of Control of the Nebraska School Activities Association will decide this week whether to make changes to the format of the state baseball tournaments. A proposal to modify the existing tournament schedule and bracket was introduced into the NSAA rulemaking process last fall by Papillion LaVista High School. That proposal makes changes that are designed to reduce overuse of pitchers and to eliminate the bye that the undefeated team enjoys on the fourth day of the tournament. The proposed bracket is very similar to the post-season tournament bracket used locally and nationally during the summer American Legion baseball season. | More | |
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2009 NBCA Coaches of the Year Announced March 18, 2010 |
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To recognize the coaching profession on the Opening Day of the 2010 Nebraska high school baseball season, the Nebraska Baseball Coaches Association has announced the Association's 2009 Coach of the Year honorees. According to NBCA President Herb Kupfer, seven coaches have been selected by the membership of the Association to be recognized for their outstanding coaching accomplishments during 2009 in the categories of Spring High School Baseball and American Legion Baseball. Within each of those categories, honorees have been selected to represent the various classifications based on size of the school community for which the team plays. | More | |
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Spring 2010 Baseball Season Starts On Schedule Despite Harsh Winter March 17, 2010 |
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The 2010 Nebraska high school baseball season will be ushered in on Thursday by temperatures expected to be in the mid-60's. Just a couple of weeks ago, with stubborn remnants of record-setting snowcover lingering along dugouts and outfield fences, playing baseball outdoors on March 18th seemed like a remote possibility. The artificial playing surface at Westside High School seemed likely to be the only venue capable of hosting any mid-March contests. As a sign of how far we've come in the past two weeks, the defending state champion Westside Warriors will not play their season opener on that turf but at its originally scheduled location -- the natural grass field at Fricke Park in Papillion. | More | |
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For 2010, Class B Has the Arms, Class A has the Sticks March 17, 2010 |
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As high school baseball fans look forward to the opening of the 2010 season tomorrow, they might be asking themselves, "who will be this year's Chris Williams, Tyler Niederklein, Dylan Vogt, Josh Scheffert, Stephen Bougher or Ryan Briggs ... the dominating hurler who can silence opponents' bats?" The answer could very well be that those dominating guys are in Class B. | More | |
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"Déjà Vu All Over Again" as Nebraska City Battery Mates Repeat History March 14,, 2010 |
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Although Logan's accomplishments no longer surprise anyone who follows Nebraska high school baseball, what did come as a quite a surprise recently to family members of the longtime battery mates is the discovery that not only was the pair making history, they were repeating it as well. | More | |
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BaseballNebraska Taps Twitter To Create Instant Score Reporting System March 3, 2010 |
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Our readers may have also noticed the dark grey Twitter display window near the top of the home page. We will use the baseballnebr Twitter account to provide updates on various newsworthy scores and highlights throughout the season, and those updates will be displayed above in the window above. This gives us the capability to instantly publish the latest information from remote locations directly to the home page of the site via a cell phone. As always, our goal is to keep our readers up to date with the latest baseball information. |
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Prep's Pritchard Picked for Pre-Season All-American First Team; Bass Honored February 18, 2010 |
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Creighton Prep senior outfielder Mike Pritchard has been selected to Collegiate Baseball Newspaper's High School Pre-Season All-American First Team. The publication also bestowed All-American Honorable Mention honors on Millard West senior infielder Brett Bass and identified several other top in-state prospects. Pritchard, a Husker recruit, has been a varsity starter at Prep since his sophomore season and bats and throws from the left side. As a junior in 2009 he set a new single season home run record at Prep with eight roundtrippers. He helped the Junior Bluejays to a runner-up finish in the spring state tournament, leading the team in batting average (.450), slugging percentage (.860), RBI's (49) and home runs and was selected to the All-Nebraska and Super-State First Team. During the 2009 American Legion season he was again the top hitter on Prep's PI Midwest Legion team with a .407 average, a .485 on-base percentage, a .757 slugging percentage and 57 hits -- all tops on the team. He also drove in 38 runs, stroked fifteen doubles, scored 40 runs and hit five triples and eight home runs on the summer to help lead PI Midwest to a runner-up finish in the National Division State Tournament. Bass set a new school record at Millard West for single season batting average (.488) last spring, breaking the record held by Jake Dugger while earning Second Team All-Nebraska and Super-State honors. During the summer he was among the state leaders in several offensive categories, including batting average (.426), hits (60), doubles (21), triples (5), RBI (56) and runs (48), while helping the NP Dodge team to a state runner-up finish and a trip to the Region 4 Mid-South Regional Tournament. Brett has recently announced that he has verbally committed to Creighton University and will be in the first incoming class that will play home games for the Bluejays at the new Ameritrade Park Omaha. Like Pritchard, Bass is a left-handed hitter. He is primarily an infielder for the Wildcats but has also seen some outfield duty. Also recognized by Collegiate Baseball as top Nebraska prospects are a pair of Millard West pitchers, right-hander AJ Ladwig and lefty Tyler Ware, reigning Gatorade Player of the Year Logan Ehlers, a left-handed pitcher for Nebraska City, Papillion-LaVista South infielder Bo Suponchick, Millard North infielder Casey Gillaspie, Westside infielder Dan Dunn, designated hitter JD Urban of Omaha Bryan, outfielder Joey Jones of Papillion-LaVista and Lincoln Southwest infielder Taylor Anderson. The publication also publishes an annual pre-season Top 30 list of teams from around the nation. No Nebraska teams were included this year. |
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Benson Baseball To Host Golf Fundraiser in May February 19, 2010 |
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BaseballNebraska Launches Statewide Network for Legion Baseball Coverage in All Classes February 20, 2010 |
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The Network will replace the LeagueLineup application that participating teams have been using for the past four years. The key difference is that rather than entering team information into a central administrative site, each team will now be given their own customizable team website that will have a data link to the central Network main site. When information is entered on a team website, it will automatically appear on the Network main site to update team records and standings. With this system, a high school baseball fan can go to the Network main site for an overview of what's going on in the standings and can then click through to any team website for detailed information about that team and its players. For those teams that already have an existing team website, the BaseballNebraska Network team site can be "turned off" for use as the team's public site and can be used just for data entry purposes. A link to the existing team website can be provided on the Network Main Site. One of the goals of the new network is to create a central source of information about Legion baseball teams and players, thus making it easier for fans from one end of the state to the other to follow summer baseball. The new system is also expected to provide greater visibility for players who are looking to get noticed by college coaches. Another important development in expanding statewide coverage is the addition of former Department of Nebraska Activities Director Jody Moeller to the BaseballNebraska team. Moeller, who is located in Shelton, will be the Statewide Coordinator for Classes B and C and will offer assistance in getting new teams in those classes up and running on the new Network. Teams that wish to participate in the BaseballNebraska Network are invited to sign up prior to April 1. To do so, click on the "More Information" link below. There is a $50 per team registration fee that can be offset by the sale of banner advertising on the team websites. |
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Elkhorn Legion Baseball Announces Fundraising Events February 22, 2010 |
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Elkhorn Legion Baseball will kick off the 2010 spring high school baseball season with a Pancake Feed on March 14th. The event will be held at the Elkhorn Eagles #3943, 20276 Wirt Street, next to the post office, from 8:30 am until 12:30pm. For $5.00 per person, guests will get their choice of juice or coffee, bacon or sausage, french toast or pancakes and eggs, all cooked to order and served by members of the baseball team. And, on April 24th, the organization will conduct its popular Texas Hold 'Em Tournament and Spaghetti Feed at Sempeck's Elkhorn Lanes. Baseball fans are encouraged to attend both events which support the Elkhorn Legion Baseball program. |
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The Big Question Looms: Will Ballfields Be Ready by March 18th? February 27, 2010 |
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Just like the rest of us, three guys with nearly a century of combined varsity baseball head coaching experience are looking out their windows these days at the piles of snow and wondering if the spring baseball season will get started on time. Veteran coaches Jim Thomas of Papillion LaVista (37 years), Randy Brolhorst of Lincoln Southeast (31 years) and Frank Ryan of Millard West (30 years) have seen wintry landscapes turn into emerald green ballfields many times over their long careers. But, of the three, only Coach Brolhorst has much hope that winter will relinquish its icy grip this year in time to get the season started on March 18, the first day of scheduled games. | More | |
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2010 Season Kicks Off With First Day of Practice on March 1 March 2, 2010 |
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With temperatures struggling to get into the mid-30's and a sharp wind blowing out of the north, baseball players and coaches across the state took to the gyms and batting cages on Monday, the first day of practice for the 2010 high school baseball season.
During the coming days most coaches will be combining work on fundamentals while also trying to make difficult decisions about how to fill the rosters of the teams in their programs. That task is made even more difficult in those programs where some prospective members of the baseball team remain immersed in post-season basketball competition. Basketball district tournaments are wrapping up tonight followed by more than a week layoff before the boys' state tournaments get underway on the 11th. The state championship games will be played on the 13th, just five days ahead of the beginning of the baseball season.
High temperatures are predicted to reach into the mid-to-upper 50's by the weekend, with warm conditions remaining throughout the following week. A good stretch of warm weather and sunny skies could erase much of the snow cover remaining across the state and help soggy ballfields dry out. Whether the warming trend that appears to be just a few days away will be enough to get the season started on time remains to be seen. |
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“Play
because you love it! Play hard tonight.”
With those words, Larry Good sent Creighton Prep
and Elkhorn onto the field at Jurgensen Park
Tuesday night. Good had just finished telling
the players about his son, TJ Good. TJ passed
away last month in Ames, Iowa, just three weeks
shy of graduating with an engineering degree
from Iowa State. Of his son, Good remembered,
“TJ was a hard worker. We learned from TJ that
it is not the number of years you put into life,
it’s the quality of the years you put in.”
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Omaha
Roncalli alumnus Joe Bircher was selected
yesterday as the Missouri Valley Conference
Pitcher of the Week. Bircher moved into
Bradley's No. 1 starting spot Friday night
against Missouri State and completely baffled
the potent MSU offense. The sophomore
left-hander pitched 8.0 scoreless innings,
scattering eight hits while striking out a
career high 10 batters and walking just one as
the Braves blanked the Bears 7-0. The shutout
was Bradley's first since a 1-0 win against
Southern Illinois on May 1, 2009. Bircher (2-3)
has pitched 16.0 innings in his last two starts
and has lowered his ERA nearly four points in
the process. 
Diamonds
are a girl's best friend, right? Make that
a ball diamond for Omaha Northwest senior Paige
Hulne'. And, it doesn't matter whether
it's a softball diamond or a baseball diamond --
she's at home on either. The four-year
starter for the Huskies softball team is turning
some heads this spring after making the school's
varsity baseball team and earning a spot in the
Huskies' starting lineup in two games so
far.
Each
time Nebraska City's record-setting pitcher,
Logan Ehlers, hurled a third strike to catcher
Greg Denniston last spring, the duo made
history. According to baseball history
researcher Vince Davenport, Logan's 161
strikeouts during the spring 2009 season
shattered the state's single season strikeout
record of 130 set in 1985 by Gregg Olson of
Omaha Northwest, who went on to a fifteen-year
career in the major leagues. 
Benson
Baseball will celebrate the end of the spring
baseball season with a 4-person scramble golf
outing at The Knolls in Omaha on Saturday, May
22nd. The State Tournament wraps up on
Thursday of that week. Participants are
reminded that the balls will be hit golf clubs
rather than baseball bats and that cleats are
not allowed on the course.
