New Prairie baseball making first state finals appearance

 

NEW CARLISLE, Ind. -- The Cougars will play in their 32nd and final game of the season, with an opportunity to bring home the first state championship in program history.

The word ‘history’ has been closely associated with the team, due to their postseason run.

“It's definitely special to be the first time in New Prairie history. I mean, obviously, we're making history this year,” said sophomore infielder Reed Robinson.

Their run is not a fluke. It’s actually exactly how head coach Mark Schellinger’s drew it up and his players are able to execute.

“Tournament baseball is all about execution and making sure that you're doing the little things right. And, you know, that's, that's been a focus of ours throughout the entire season. But especially in the postseason,” Schellinger said.

Doesn't matter if it's the pitching, batting, or base running, small details have turned into large victories for new prairie.

“That just comes down to repetitions and the practices coach puts together. This one's obviously very offensive heavily and we're practicing bunts only out there, a little slashes, hit and runs. Stuff to get us moving something where we can read the ball,” senior outfielder Colin Laskowski said.

“There's no big stuff that the little stuff I mean, you have to take every little detail seriously. And to me it's working,” senior pitcher/infielder Matt Sorce.

The work has been paying off and the proof is in the historic run the team has put together, to send their eight seniors off the right way.

“Win or lose that this is it. This is the last time. You know, we have today's practice, we have tomorrow's practice and then we have the game and unfortunately, that's it. You know, we'd love to have another week or more, but also does allow us to kind of be ready for that,” Schellinger added.

“I've been playing with them forever. I think my first year with them was travel. I think it was 12 years ago. You and so just to build something up like this, it's just real special,” Sorce mentioned.

“Win or lose, we're gonna leave it all out there. We got a job to do. So we're gonna look at look at it that way. But we're still going to do everything we can to win. And we're gonna put our hearts out there. We're going to be there to pick each other up,” Laskowski said.