The baseball team is approaching the last game of the regular season and has come in with an overall record of 17-8 and a conference record of 8-4.

Senior Jared Ravencamp talked about what the team has been working on to improve this season.

“Getting better at hitting and putting the ball in play has been our main focus offensively, and defensively we’ve been focusing on just throwing strikes and making batters miss,” Ravencamp said.

Upperclassmen leadership and experience have been big parts of this season with 14 returning lettermen this year. They were also recognized for leading not only Class 5 but all classes in Missouri with a team GPA of 4.02. It is the sixth consecutive year they have led Class 5 in team GPA and 5th time in 6 years they have led all classes, narrowly missing out on 1st with a 2nd last year. Eight players were named to the 2018 Academic All-State Team. They are seniors Will Heller, Brandt Lightner, Derek Mammen, Hunter Nyquist, Jared Ravencamp, Andrew Simms, Quinton Weld and junior John Herrman.

  The team has been facing a variation of situations throughout the season with close games that go to extra innings to blowout games that seem to be decided in the first few innings. At the start of the season the team not only battled their opponents in tough games but also battled the weather in some tough conditions. Eight of the first 12 games of the season were either postponed to a later date or cancelled.

Senior Dustin Brewer talked about the changing weather conditions.

“All the rain and snow made us have to practice inside, which makes it difficult to work on fielding without the turf,” Brewer said.

Ravencamp also talked about the weather and how the team adjusted to it.

“It was kind of good that we had some rainouts because it gave us more time in practice which then helped us when we finally got to play, and we just tried to put the bad weather out of minds and focus on the game,” Ravencamp said.

The team started the season off strong winning 13 of the first 15 games but have a 3-6 record since then.

Brewer talked about how he thought the team performed this season and his favorite part of the season.

“ I think we performed pretty good at the start of the season but we kind of lost our mojo, but we can always do better, and I think we’re on the right track for the playoffs. My favorite part of the season is just going out and playing in the games with all my friends,” Brewer said.

The next game is on Monday against Raytown South High School in the district tournament. That game is at 4 p.m. at Blue Springs High school.