These defending champs are loaded again

Bret Hoyer yells to no one in particular as he trots to the outfield to begin a recent Cedar Rapids Kennedy baseball practice.

"What a day! What a day!" Hoyer exclaims. "It's great to be a Cougar!"

Most of his players just smile. A couple chuckle.

They know their coach is 100-percent correct. It is great to be a Cougar right now.

Great to be a Spartan, too. Kennedy and Solon won state baseball championships last season and have all the pieces to repeat.

Kennedy was the 4A champ, 10-running Iowa City West for its first baseball title and the Mississippi Valley Conference's first big-school baseball title since 1994. Solon went 41-2 to wipe out Class 2A and win its first championship.

These teams are loaded again, with Kennedy returning a plethora of key returnees to go along with juniors who were part of a highly successful sophomore team last season. Solon has everyone back, including five - yes, five - first-team all-staters.

And you want to know the really, really cool thing here? Kennedy and Solon actually play each other July 8 at Kennedy.

Call it a rematch from their days as USSSA youth players.

"That is going to be a lot of fun," said Solon's Brandon Shulista. "I think it was fifth and sixth grade when we played them. They won some games, but we did, too."

"When we'd play, we were always close throughout," said Kennedy's Griffin Michael. "We'd play double-headers, and we'd always seem to split with them. It was always very competitive with them."

Amazing how so many of the kids on both sides grew up to be terrific players.

At Kennedy, there's outfielder Austin Christensen. Arguably the top player in the state, the sweet-swinging lefty hit .492 with eight home runs and won nine gameson the mound with an earned run average under 2.00. He's headed to Nebraska to play college ball with his brother, Chad.

Second baseman Terrell Sykes might not look like much until the game starts, but all he does is hit and make plays defensively. He's going to the same junior college (Southeastern) as Cougars teammates Griffin Michael and David Yancey.

"It's a great group of kids. They are very receptive to what we are trying to do," said Hoyer, 27 wins shy of 500 for his career. "That's what's so much fun. It's really not any different than any other year in terms of attitude, hustle, concentration. It's gotten to the point now where they know what's expected."

"For us, it feels the same. We're still a team," said Sykes. "Everyone else looks at us as state champions and that we're supposed to be outstanding. But we're just like every other team. We're coming out and starting all over. Last year is behind us. It's still with us, we know what we did, but we start over and don't be cocky about it."

If there's a school you'd expect to be cocky, it's Solon. They're not, by the way.

All those state football championships, consistently good basketball, track and soccer teams. And now baseball, too.

Outfielder Derrick Loveless and shortstop Nick Day will play at Iowa. Shulista will pitch for a good Juco program at Iowa Central. Second baseman Marshall Koehn set a state record with 30 doubles last season.

Corner infielder Tyler Smith drove in a whopping 67 runs. Solon hit .406 as a team.

"We're all pretty excited coming off that championship season," said Koehn, who has chosen to walk-on to the Iowa football team as a kicker-punter. "We've got a lot tougher schedule this year, we're playing a lot of bigger schools to try and get us ready for substate. We're jumping up a class, so that's just another opportunity for us."

As Koehn mentioned, Solon is a 3A school this season, so that's kind of  a concern. So is complacency, though you get the feeling not too much of one.

Hoyer and coaching counterpart Keith McSweeney have proven they know how to get the best out of their players.

"That's kind of in the past," said Shulista of last season. "We're just trying to take a fresh approach to everything. We know we're going to be playing better competition, but we're looking forward to it."

"I think we're all just excited," Michael said. "We want to get the season going and try to repeat what we did (last year). We've got a lot of guys back. We just want to get it going."