Kennedy’s baseball team has a night to savor, and will never stop doing so

CEDAR RAPIDS — Kennedy High School’s baseball players will carry Friday night with them forever.

The Cougars capped a sensational 36-4 season with a superb finish Friday at Veterans Memorial Stadium, a 7-3 Class 4A championship-game victory over West Des Moines Dowling before a crowd of 3,051.

Wherever these Cougars go and whatever they do in life, they’ll not forget the night they piled atop each other on the stadium’s pitching mound while their schoolmates and families roared jubilantly in the stands.

The players of the 2010 Kennedy team that won the school’s other state baseball title can tell the new champs that the joy and pride from winning it will never leave them.

“Seeing those guys dogpile after winning the substate final last week brought back a rush of memories and feelings,” Ryan Dusil, a vital player on the 2010 Cougars, said Friday afternoon.

“Several players and parents from our championship team have been watching closely and will be there tonight. We have been reminiscing about our own dog piles, those long bus rides to (Des Moines’) Principal Park, and all the hard work that went into it.

“There is no coaching staff more deserving of another state title.”

Austin Christensen is one of Iowa’s best high school players of the last quarter-century. He hit 42 home runs in his Kennedy career, and was a junior on the 2010 team. He went on to play baseball at Nebraska.

“Winning a state championship was one of my favorites, if not my favorite baseball memory,” said Christensen, an assistant baseball coach at Cedar Rapids Washington.

“Nothing can compare to that moment with your childhood friends and teammates that you’ve grown up with and worked so hard with for many years. Winning in 2010 is still something we talk about all of the time.

“I am so proud of this group in 2024. Nobody is more deserving than Coach Hoyer and I’m so happy for this team and the way they’ve represented Kennedy baseball.”

Besides head coach Bret Hoyer, who has been in the Iowa High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame for a while now, another tie to both teams is David Yancey, a key player in 2010 and a Cougars assistant coach now.

“Coach Yancey talks about (the 2010 crown) dang near every day,” said Kennedy player Colton Duerling, who threw a strong complete game Friday on a night his team really needed him to go the distance.

“I know I’m going to be telling my kids about this one,” Duerling said.

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Photos: Kennedy vs. Dowling in Class 4A state baseball championship

“I might have enjoyed this one more,” Yancey said. “I got to sit back and enjoy it. I lived through the boys on this one. I’ll tell you, this was beyond fun.”

That 36-4 record tells you Kennedy’s players never let up, never got down. Why would they when Yancey was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis around the end of last year’s baseball season and hasn’t let it rob him of spirit or purpose? He sees his main role as a coach to be a positive influence.

“I try to keep a good attitude about everything,” Yancey said. “That’s my main thing. I don’t yell or anything, but they know when I’m mad. But I don’t raise my voice. I just try to uplift them as much as I can, tell them to have fun.

“I’ve dealt with quite a bit of adversity. They see it and they persevere just like me. I try to lead by example, try to be nice to everyone. It’s pretty easy with these boys. They’re just as nice if not nicer.”

Those boys will be men soon enough. Hoyer said they’ll remain “baseball brothers.”

“You’ll still see them together when they’re 30, 40, 50 years old,” he said. ”Our 2014 team didn’t win the state title, but they were conference champs and made it to the state tournament. That class was very similar. Their parents still get together and go on trips together.“

Hoyer worked his way from the field up to the stadium corridor after the game, celebrating with a lot of Kennedy alumni, parents and friends. Fourteen years apart, his consistently fine program has won two state titles.

“This is surreal,” he said, beaming. “The other one was, too.”

And the best thing about them? They last forever.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com