At Lisbon, they're young, but they're good

LISBON - You thought they'd take a hit in the win column this prep baseball season. They thought they'd take one, too."I was hoping we'd go .500, actually," Lisbon pitcher-outfielder Connor Woodward said.The Lions instead have gotten the bonus plan. They went into their regular-season home finale Monday night against Maquoketa Valley with a 27-7 record.Lisbon has pocketed the Big East Conference championship and entered the Iowa High School Baseball Coaches Association's Class 1A rankings for the first time this season at No. 10.Last year's team went 35-8 and advanced to the semifinals of the state tournament. This year's team is all over that same path, despite losing some important seniors - all-state caliber seniors."Not necessarily completely surprising," said catcher Hunter Caspers. "I did expect us to do well, but maybe not quite as well as we've done.""We have high expectations here," said Coach Ryan Stensland. "The kids are getting it done, finding ways to get wins. It hasn't been easy. I mean, last year, we had four seniors at the top of the order."And this year they've got five sophomores there. That's the thing about this team. It's so, so young.Seven of the nine starters are sophomores or freshmen. With the exception of one game (four innings thrown by Caspers), it's been freshmen, sophomores and even an eighth-grader (Riley Scott) doing all of the pitching."I've enjoyed the challenge," said Caspers, a three-year starting catcher. "I've just tried to keep them calm, keep their mindset good."Woodward and sophomore Ryan Kortemeyer have emerged as the top two pitchers for Lisbon, combining for a 14-4 record. Sophomores Colton Krob and Keegan Tritle also have accumulated significant innings and have a combined 9-3 record.All four of those guys have earned run average of 2.60 or lower. Last season, ace Marshall Morgan threw a whopping 116 innings. This has been pitcher by committee.Youthful pitcher by committee."We all came in during the winter. In the winter, we have pitching workouts," Kortemeyer said. "Our pitchers wanted to work. We don't have a 100-plus inning guy like we had with Marshall. He came home from college over the winter and told me 'Just go out and pitch like I can.' That kind of took the pressure off me.""He left pretty big shoes to fill," Woodward said. "On the other hand, we knew we had lots of good pitchers. I really think we've got five good pitchers on this team."Ryan Light, yet another sophomore, has the highest batting average of guys who have played every game (.380). Tritle is next at .376 and all four of his team's home runs.Lisbon's district and potential substate brackets are filled with teams that have lots of seniors. But Stensland pointed out he's got five sophomores (Light, Woodward, Tritle, Kortemeyer and shortstop Brock Givens) who have been playing varsity ball since eighth grade."A lot of it is maturity with these young guys," Stensland said. "They never had the luxury of growing into playing varsity. They were thrown right into it."You look at a lot of the teams we've played this season and who are in our district, and seven of their nine starters are seniors. You look at our team, and seven of our nine starters are sophomores or freshmen. But these guys are getting it done."