Lehman catcher Ian Stiver tags out a Riverside runner in the second inning of the Cavaliers’ Monday win in Sidney. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Two seasons removed from a 4-win season, Mark Brunswick and Dave King have the Lehman Cavaliers on path to a winning season and a return to their not-so-long-ago days of being Division IV contenders.
Sidney, OH – The older he gets the more Lehman assistant coach Dave King resembles the iconic coach and manager of so many major league teams during his 60 years in baseball, Don Zimmer.
He’s baseball through and through, and after a brief retirement he returned (just like Zimmer more than once) this year to help another veteran coach, Mark Brunswick, facilitate the rebuild of Lehman baseball.
Publisher/editor Sonny Fulks writes the Big Ten and Buckeyes baseball for Press Pros Magazine.com.
The Minster Bank proudly sponsors the state baseball tournament on Press Pros Magazine.com.
And just a year removed from an 11-12 record…and two years since a 4-win season in 2022…King, for his part, believes that all that stands between Lehman and the great rebuild is the simple matter of playing more baseball. And Monday they flashed some of the physical rudiments of a winning program, beating Riverside in run-rule fashion 16-6. Leading the Pirates 9-6 entering the sixth, King’s Cavaliers piled on 7 runs in the bottom of the sixth to gain their sixth win of the season against five losses.
The owner of more than 600 lifetime wins, King is currently serving as interim head coach for Brunswick (who doubles as Lehman’s athletic director) while Brunswick deals with some personal health issues.
“I didn’t come back to be head coach,” says King. “I came back to help with the pitchers and teach these kids baseball.”
“I didn’t come back to be the head coach,” smiled King. “I came back to help with the pitchers and to teach these kids baseball. But you know, you can never really get baseball out of your system. I’m blessed to have this opportunity.”
A thing of beauty it was not. It was sloppy at times. Pitcher Korban Schmiesing threw more than a hundred pitches Monday to complete the six-inning affair and gain the win.
There were instances of throwing to the wrong base, taking bad angles on balls hit to the outfield, and swinging at bad pitches. All of it drives a coach like King crazy.
But true to King teams in the past, the young Cavaliers flashed the bats against a Riverside team that struggled to throw strikes. The Cavaliers knocked out Pirates starter Sam King in the second inning when they scored five times, the big knock being a two-run double by Seth Kennedy, who had a two-hit game.
However, Riverside was game, if not equally inexperienced. While Lehman would score twice in the first and five times in the second, Riverside scored once in the first and three times in the third off Schmiesing when it looked as if the Cavaliers would run-rule the Pirates by the fifth inning.
“The Spot” Restaurant, in Sidney, is proud to be the presenting sponsor of the 2024 OHSAA baseball tournament on pressprosmagazine.com.
They would finish with 16 runs on 14 hits: CJ Olding (2 hits), Kennedy (2 hits), JD Barhorst (2 hits), and Seth Knapke (3 hits), and while King is famous for his oft-used phrase of ‘code red’ (meaning to be aggressive with the bats), the young Cavaliers took him at his word. After Riverside had scored single runs in the fifth and sixth of Schmiesing to cut a comfortable Lehman lead to 9-6, Lehman stormed back in the bottom of the sixth, batting around, to score 7 runs on 6 hits – the game clincher being a two-run single by sophomore shortstop Turner Lachey (1 for 3 on the day) to push across the 9th and 10th runs necessary to complete the 10-run margin after five innings.
Korban Schmiesing threw 105 pitches in Monday’s run-rule win over Riverside.
“I try to go to the plate with a good mindset,” said Seth Knapke of his three-hit day. “Our coaches always say that the sixth inning is the most vital inning of the game. You go out there strong-minded, and do what you gotta’ do. We’re young, but we have talent and the lack of experience affects us sometimes. We really haven’t played that much baseball, but we’re on the road to have a good season.
“This summer I’ll probably try to hook on with any way I can keep playing baseball,” he added. “Next year I’m going to Wright State to study business administration and I would try to walk on and play there if I could.”
Despite his lack of actual baseball time, Knapke has the tools to develop into a bonafide college baseball player, not unlike a number of Lehman athletes who suffer from the same deficiency of not having played enough baseball for it to become instinct.
Huffer Chiropractic has offices in Osgood, Dublin and Jackson Center to help your athlete become elite.
“The difference today was our getting some timely hits, and two-out hits,” said King. “And that’s been a long time coming.”
Despite the fact of his winning 600-plus games over the course of his 30-year career, King is probably most noted for his ability to develop young baseball players, an attribute that should serve Lehman well in the short term, once again. Before retiring five years ago he made the Cavaliers into a perennial league champion and a consistent contender in the OHSAA district and regional rounds of the tournament.
Young and talented…sophomore shortstop Turner Lachey turns a double play in Monday’s TRC win over Riverside.
“Some of these kids really don’t know that much about how to play baseball,” he says. “And you really can’t get too sophisticated with them. I try to keep it simple. We bunt it when we need to, our defense was pretty solid tonight, and our pitcher didn’t throw enough strikes. And when you don’t throw strikes you’re lucky to win.
“But we did enough. Seth Kennedy had a big double in the second inning to drive in a couple of runs…and he hit a couple of balls hard tonight. Knapke was 3 for 4. And we’ve got a couple of kids with good averages, but Mark and I really don’t focus on averages. The bottom line…we’ve got some kids that don’t have good averages but have a knack for getting on base. And we’ve got some kids who are capable of being leaders – some silent leaders. Our seniors are not rah-rah guys, but they lead.”
As exuberant as ‘Kinger’ can be, he’s also a realist about young teams playing against pitching better than Riverside’s on Monday.
Teaching moments….Yankee manager Casey Stengel once famously said, “Doesn’t anyone here know how to play this game?”
“We’re going to struggle when we play teams with dominant pitching,” he adds, pointing to Tuesday’s league game with Bethel. “The beat us the first time, 4-0, and we only had two hits.”
But good pitching generally does beats good hitting…at every level.
For now, Brunswick, who had much success at Bellefontaine (two-time state semi-finalists) and Marysville, and King (625 wins) are content to build, encourage, and attract more good young athletes like CJ Olding, Turner Lachey, and Korban Schmiesing to play baseball.
“We’re trying to get to twelve wins,” he claims. ‘Because if you can get to twelve you’re pretty much guaranteed a .500 season. Then you just add on as many as you can beyond twelve, and maybe a tournament win.
“I still feel like I can offer something. I think I have a pretty good rapport with these kids, and I’ll know when they’re not listening to me anymore.”
That’s the blueprint – play, win, have some fun, and attract others who want to be a part of it. It’s the trademark of Mark Brunswick and Dave King’s careers.
And it’s happening at Lehman.
Wilson Health proudly sponsors the best in area sports coverage on Press Pros Magazine.com.