FR wants to climb above .500

The Fort Recovery High School baseball program was struggling.
The Indians won just two games apiece in 2010 and ’11, and they went three straight seasons without a conference victory. They started to turn things around last season, and hope to continue the trend this year.
Fort Recovery finished with a 9-17 record, won two games in the Midwest Athletic Conference and played several other close ones.
The Tribe lost 11-10 in eight innings to MAC champion Versailles. It fell 6-5 to Coldwater and 3-1 to New Bremen, two teams that finished in a four-way tie for second place in the league, and had a 6-5 loss to Parkway.
“Last year we were in some ball games. And this year we’re hoping to be on top of some of those games,” said third-year coach Jerry Kaup. “We have a good core back … and a couple of young guys we’re going to bring up from the JV team.”
While the Indians lost a few key players to graduation, they return nine who got at least 35 at bats last season. The leader among them is junior first baseman Jacob Muhlenkamp, who hit .333 last season with a .424 on-base percentage and .482 slugging percentage. His 25 hits were a team high, and he also had four doubles, 14 RBIs and 13 runs.
Catcher Blake Boughman, a junior, gave Fort Recovery a lift last season as he transferred from jay County. He drove in a team-best 15 runs and also drew seven walks.
Collin O’Dell, a two-year starter at third base, led the Tribe in runs (17) and stolen bases (seven), and second baseman Shane Pottkotter matched Boughman by drawing seven walks. Chad Schroer, one of five seniors on the squad, followed Muhlenkamp with a .291 average last season.
“Those are the guys who have taken a lot of swings, and we’re hoping they’ll drive the baseball,” said Kaup. “We worked a lot this winter on driving baseballs into the gaps and making something happen. …
“We need to be more consistent at the plate. … We need them to all get good at bats when they’re up there. We struck out too much last year.”
Other returning players with significant experience at the plate are outfielders Alex Thien, Elijah Kahlig and Gabe Riegle and pitcher/utility man Kent Retz. Also fighting for playing time will be infielders Cole Wendel, Nathan Lochtefeld, Derek Backs and Mike Joash.
Retz and Thien are the only returning pitchers who threw more than 15 innings last season as the team lost Jared Kahlig, Hayden Pottkotter and Ryan Gaerke to graduation.
Jackson Hobbs and Pottkotter will fill out the starting rotation for the Indians. Elijah Kahlig, who struck out 13 batters in 9 1/3 innings a year ago, Muhlenkamp and Schroer will also see time on the mound.
“We have a lot of arms, a lot of pitchers, but we haven’t had anybody whose really stepped forward to say, ‘I am the ace of this squad,’” said Kaup. “Last year Jared (Kahlig) stepped up and did that. This year we have four guys, and maybe three more, that are capable pitchers.”
With so much experience back, the Indians are hoping to continue trending in the right direction. They’d like to have a chance to get back above .500 for the first time since 2007, when they won their second of back-to-back sectional titles and lost 7-6 to Division IV No. 1 Minster in the district championship game.
“We would like to win. We have a group of guys who think they are making steps,” said Kaup. “We trust each other. I think that will be good for the teamwork, and we’re hoping that we can be a team that people are going to respect.
“We’d like to get to that .500 mark. We’ve not been there for a while. So we’d like to get there and then see what happens.”[[In-content Ad]]