Rocket baseball team young but showing good potential

The Spencer baseball team is looking young this year with about half of its roster made up of incoming freshmen. With so many members of the team coming on as new players, experience on the field will be one area the Rockets will struggle with this season, but with the overall numbers, the team is hoping to quickly adapt and use the skills they already have to build for future years.

A total of 23 boys are a part of the baseball team this year, giving the team a large pool to pull from for their varsity squad while still having enough players to field a JV team as well. Justin Knecht, the head coach of the Rockets, said the age of the team skews toward the young side as they lost their three top players to graduation.

“Our numbers are really good, we have 23 players out, with a large freshman class of 12 players making up over 50 percent of the team,” he said. “We only have two seniors out, which results in our varsity experience being really low. Having 23 players out will allow us to have a full JV team this year, which we have not been able to do in years. Last year’s team was led primarily by the three senior all-conference selections Chase Higgins, Kyler Bainer, and Dom Post, who all played a lot of baseball over the years. This year’s team we will be playing a lot of players with limited high school experience. New leaders in the field and in the dugout will need to come forward.”

Because of the inexperience, Knecht said there are some areas of the game in which he knows the players will struggle. Pitching is an especially sore spot since the team has only one returning pitcher in Andrew Sieracki, who threw a couple innings last year. It will take some time to find the right players needed to fill that role and get comfortable enough on the mound to make their throws count.

“Pitching will be our biggest area for growth,” he said. “We only return one pitcher that pitched any innings at the high school level last year. We really do not know what to expect from our pitchers as they have not pitched at this level yet. If our pitchers are able to develop quickly we should play competitive games most nights. Teaching our young staff the importance of throwing strikes and getting ahead in counts will be one of our primary objectives as a coaching staff.”

While the players work to gain the necessary experience, there are a couple strengths the Rockets have that should help them in games. Through the games played so far this season, Knecht said he has seen the players in the outfield rise to the occasion and make good plays, driving the whole team to work hard on their defensive strategy.

“We are a team that will continue to get stronger each week of the season as players gain more experience,” he said. “The strongest phase of the game for our team this year will be our defense. In the early part of the season our outfield has played really well. With inexperienced pitching staff and lineup, playing sound defense will hopefully be our calling card.”

In the outfield this season are juniors Kaiden Miller and Luke Roehrborn and senior Caleb Rucker. Filling out the infield will be junior Andrew Sieracki, who will play primarily as third baseman when he is not pitching; fellow junior Peyton Brookhart, who will play as first baseman and occasionally at third; freshman Reed Knecht will play shortstop, and sophomore Cadyn Hardrath and junior Connor Bacon will share second base.

“This will be Kaiden’s first year as full time starter,” said Knecht, referring to each player’s experience level. “Luke Roehrborn played some centerfield last year and will be our primary centerfielder this year. Luke has played really well in center to start the year. The infield will be young. Junior Andrew Sieracki has the most returning experience on the infield and will be our primary third baseman. Andrew played all over the infield last year and will be counted on to help lead the infielders.”

Rounding out the lineup inside the bases will be sophomore Jace Zahn, who will play at first base, freshman Madden Prybylski, who will be the jack-of-all-trades player, and senior Chase Wirtz, who will be catcher. In addition to Sieracki, other pitchers who will take the mound for Spencer will be Brookhart, Roehrborn, Prybylski, Knecht, and freshmen Tyler Peterson and Carter Luepke.

“This will be the first high school experience for all three of the middle infielders,” said Knecht. “Jace Zahn will play first base, and did log a few innings at first base last year. Madden Prybylski will play a utility role and bounce between multiple outfield and infield positions. Our pitching will be handled by juniors and freshmen this year. Only Andrew Sieracki has pitched at the high school level so far, but only logged eight innings last year. All other pitchers this will be their first high school pitching experience. Freshmen Madden Prybylski and Tyler Peterson have shown really good poise on the mound to start the season. Our primary catcher will be senior Chase Wirtz. Like the rest of our team, Chase does not have a lot of experience at catcher, but in the early part of the season has played really well at the position. We were really concerned with this position to start the year, and Chase has really shored the position up for the team.”

On the offensive side of the ball, Knecht said the top hitters will be Madden Prybylski, Reed Knecht, Luke Roehrborn, Andrew Sieracki and Kaiden Miller.

“Offensively the top of the lineup will primarily be led by two freshmen Madden Prybylski and Reed Knecht,” he said. “They will be counted on to put good at-bats together and set the table for the middle of the lineup. The middle of the lineup will have a trio of juniors Luke Roehrborn, Andrew Sieracki, and Kaiden Miller working together to be the teams main run producers. This will be their first chance to anchor a lineup, and all three of them have the ability to drive the ball into the gaps.”

By the end of the season, Knecht said the Rockets should be performing a lot better than they have at the start of the season. While that may mean their conference position this year is up in the air at this point, for the Rockets, it is gaining the experience that is important.

“I expect the team to grow a lot during the course of the year, as our inexperience turns into experience,” he said. “We talk a lot about competing every pitch whether it’s on offense or defense, no matter the score. As the players gain experience and really learn what it takes to not take a pitch off and compete to the end, our level of play should continue to get better each week. I expect us to be a lot stronger team by the the end of the year.”