This Team Is Walking the Path Tken by Both the 2000 Basketball Mustangs and the 2012 Baseballers
IF history does indeed repeat itself, our current Brossart baseball team is geared up to make a serious run in post-season play.
In two of our school’s most notable achievements – the 2000 Boys Basketball team winning the 10th Region Championship and then defeating Graves County in Rupp Arena, and our 2012 Baseball Team’s winning the 10th Region Championship and then playing into the KHSAA Sweet Sixteen semi-finals, each had sustained a late-season losing streak. The round-ballers lost five of their last six regular season games, and took a 13-12 record into the district tournament that season. As a reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader wrote, “So much for late season momentum.” When the curtain dropped on their season, they were 20-13 and immortal.
In 2012, the team that will be remembered as perhaps our “best ever” (certainly by accomplishment standards) lost 8 of 9 regular season games between April 18th and May 7th that year. The ’12 team had even lost to Harrison County 10-3 just 15 days prior to ending their season in the regional finals.
I guess this “prelude to greatness” thing that we do must be a Brossart thing, that even we don’t understand. Coach Ron Verst is trying to resurrect the past, hauling out the 2012 uniforms this weekend as the Mustangs lost narrowly to Madison Central and defeated Brayan Station in Lexington.
While our 2007 Basketball Mustangs did not sustain a prolonged losing streak prior to winning the All “A” State Championship (another contender for Top Achievement in School History) we did lose to Pendleton County, a team that would finish their season at 10-14, in a game that was supposed to be a formality, just prior to our trip to EKU.
The 2022 Baseball Mustangs have completed their qualifications for greatness, by losing five of their last six games of the regular season. A win over Scott on Tuesday would guarantee us a spot in the 10th Region Tournament from where we would then take them one at a time, and see where it takes us. In 2012, with a somewhat comparable team, it took us to Whitaker Bank ballpark in Lexington and on to fame and glory as we then knocked off Pikeville and Louisville St Xavier before losing in extras to the eventual state champ, Woodford County. You just never know.
Is this team good enough to pull something like this off? Maybe. We make contact at the plate and plays in the field. We are solid at all positions, with pitching being this team’s big question mark. We certainly know that Evan Moore is capable of getting the job done on his watch. The 2012 team had Nate Verst, who at the time was a sophomore sporting a 10-0 record, and Zach Fardo, who beat Campbell County in the district and Pikeville in the State Tournament. We also have Charles Hartig and Mitchell Combs, who are certainly capable of coming up big on the grand stage. Seniors have a way of stepping up when the chips are down, and we have seven of them. Any other member of our “Pitcher by Committee” corps is capable of giving us good innings in a game that means more than a Tuesday evening bout back at St. Mary.
After seeing Rich Strike win the Kentucky Derby, anything should be possible. No team, including Harrison County wants to draw us in the Regional Tournament, and if we would play Campbell County in the Regional, that would be just fine, because it would be for the trip to Lexington. Mac Whitaker knows all too well of his track record with Brossart in big games. We are what is called a “tough out.”
Now we have to get there.
