The BigRich Sports Report
America’s oldest and favorite pastime could very well provide the next run of high level success in A-Town.
Baseball is starting to pick up some serious steam around here, most notably highlighted by the postseason success from the Aurora Cooperative Post 42 Juniors team.
As of this writing, Aurora has won five of its seven postseason games, including a victory Saturday in Wayne at the Class B American Legion state tournament.
They’re 21-8 overall on the season and have proven a point I’ve tried to convey when people ask dating back to the spring high school season.
“These kids will be dangerous if you let them play against others their own age.”
It cannot be overstated what this group of young players has done over the last several years. A team made up nearly entirely of freshmen and sophomores, playing against players and teams sometimes three and four years older than they are, and giving it their best anyway.
To this point, that hasn’t resulted in very many victories. However, as that nucleus of Aurora talent starts to become the old guard, success may very well be on the horizon.
It’s already started. Look at this Aurora Cooperative Post 42 Juniors team. Without an age gap, Aurora has proven to have one of the top teams in the state.
They did it with their backs against the wall, too. Aurora needed to win three consecutive elimination games at districts, including twice in one day. Easy enough.
Aurora was the first team to take the field in the Class B state tournament on a sweltering late-morning Saturday. The boys in red pulled away for a victory.
Several of these wins in the postseason have also come over teams who posted dominant victories over Aurora during the spring season.
Age and development matter. Aurora’s players are getting that across the board. Jarrett Havens sees that. He’s on both the high school and legion coaching staff and says this is just the beginning.
“Aurora is trending in a good direction for baseball,” Havens said. “This is a pretty experienced group at the Juniors level and I think they’re going to do really well as they keep going up to Seniors and with spring high school ball. They have a ton of good momentum.”
Aurora legion baseball manager Jeremy Burgener has been around the summer program for a decade-plus now and has seen both the highs and the lows of baseball in the community.
If you look at Aurora’s Junior roster compared to some others they’ve played throughout the summer and postseason, its roster is in some cases double that of other teams.
That’s not an accident.
“We have a lot of guys on this team that maybe didn’t see a ton of playing time but showed up at practice every day and they’ve gotten so much better,” Burgener said. “They work so hard, ask the right questions and go about things the right way.”
It’s also been seen at the youth level as the A-Town youth baseball community exploded in popularity this summer thanks to some well-invested volunteers. That only looks to continue that in the years to follow.
It’s starting from the ground up. As the popularity and success begins at the youth level, it’s only going to carry over into the high school level.
“We want to establish a winning culture here,” Burgener said after the Juniors won the district title last week. “This is a really talented team. We have so many guys who can play and sometimes that’s hard. It’s great to see these guys come out and compete and win a lot of games.”
In its first three years of high school baseball, Aurora has won more games each year, including five last spring.
Aurora coach Kevin Asher basically called his shot Babe Ruth style after a district loss to Central City in May (a team Aurora would beat in the Juniors district tournament two months later).
“I hope the kids understand the potential we have a year or two down the line,” Asher said. “These kids surprised the heck out of me the way they competed and battled. I hope they have a great summer and build some confidence.”
RICHARD RHODEN