Youthful Starfires working under new coach

When Brad Buckingham was born, Dean Stahly had already been coaching the South Adams High School baseball team for a decade.

After 38 years, Stahly retired as head of the Starfire program following the 2008 season. Now Buckingham, a 1998 SAHS graduate who played under Stahly and returned to coach as his assistant last season, is taking over.

Buckingham has previous head coaching experience, having put together an 84-60-1 record in five seasons at Frankton prior to returning to Berne. He played his college baseball at Bluffton, where he holds career records for hits and games played.

"Basically we want to control the things that we can control," said Buckingham. "That's our main focus right now.

"Like throwing strikes. We're not going to know year in and year out what kind of pitchers we're going to have, but we know if we don't throw strikes it doesn't matter how hard we throw or how slow we throw. ... That's going to be one of our main points of emphasis.

"Another ... for our program is making the routine play.

"We know we have to make the routine play in order to stay in the game."

Staying fundamentally sound will be a definite key for the Starfires this season with their limited pitching experience.

The 2008 staff leaned heavily on seniors Daniel Bollenbacher (four wins, 100 strikeouts), Ethan Sharp (six wins) and Travis Hunt (four wins). That team went 14-12 during the regular season before getting knocked out of the sectional tournament by Bishop Luers.

Kyle DeArmond, a senior, is the only player back who even saw action on the mound last year. He will be joined on the staff by sophomore Taylor LeFever, who is also one of the team's catchers, sophomore Taylor Smith and freshman Nick Batt.

"We're pretty young," Buckingham said. "We're very inexperienced. But we have some quality young pitchers.

"It's just a matter of them learning and getting comfortable."

DeArmond is also the top returning hitter from a team that lost Jordan Steiner (.434 batting average, 19 doubles) and Bollenbacher (.337). He put up a .359 average last season and scored a team-best 33 runs.

Other top returning players are Caleb Armenta (.291) and Daniel Dynes (.281), both seniors.

"DeArmond is the vocal leader," said Buckingham while also giving credit to his other two returning seniors. "They're all great leaders by example. You ask (the team) to do anything and they're going to be the first ones to do it.

DeArmond will play shortstop for the Starfires with sophomore Caleb Sprunger at third base, junior Dustin Hunt at second and sophomore Curtis Mitchell at first. John Striker, a junior, and LeFever will play catcher.

Dynes, Armenta, junior Andrew Smith and sophomore Taylor Smith are in the mix for the three outfield slots.

"(DeArmond, Dynes and Armenta) have the most experience. And then we've just got a lot of youth," said Buckingham. "LeFever is going to be a good hitter. He's probably going to be hit-and-miss for a while, but that's just because he's never seen varsity pitching. We have a lot of guys in that boat."

One of the things Buckingham has been working on with his team to help counteract the lack of plate experience is bunting. He notes that while teams may have cycles in which they are the haves or have nots in terms of power hitting, every team can use the bunt to help move the offense along.

He said he's hoping the first half of the season can help prepare his young team for conference and tournament play.

"I think if we can gain some quality experience early we can be all right," said Buckingham. "Our goal is to compete in every game we play in. If you have an experienced team or a non-experienced team you still have to get the big hit, you've got to make the big play, get the big strikeout. But if we know we're in every game, we're definitely going to scratch some out."[[In-content Ad]]