Success will be a lasting memory

“For the first time …”
That phrase was written quite often this spring about the Fort Recovery High School baseball team.
This was a special season for the Tribe. It reached the state semifinals for the first time — there’s that line again — since 1953.
Along the way, a number of records were broken. To be exact, eight team and six individual records fell at the hands of the 2015 squad.
Another two individual achievements matched the best in program history.
And four players put themselves in the top 10 season statistical categories.
Here’s a breakdown of the accomplishments from this year’s squad.

Team
The Indians set new school records for consecutive wins in a season and longest winning streak with 17. Fort Recovery got off to a hot start, defeating Celina, Parkway, Arcanum and Lehman Catholic during that time.
The Tribe also added wins against perennial powerhouse Coldwater — it hadn’t beaten the Cavaliers in three decades — Minster, Lehman Catholic (again) and Cincinnati Country Day to reach another school record 25 wins in a season.
Add that to the 2014 record of 20-5 and no other Tribe team has won more games (45) in a two-year span.
Fort Recovery’s 8-2 tally in the Midwest Athletic Conference surpassed the 2014 team, which went 6-4.
The Indians also set new marks for most hits (268), at bats (806), runs (234) and games played (31) in a season.

Mitch Stammen
Dale Griesinger stole 25 bases in 1949, a record that stood for 65 years until Stammen broke it last season with 27.
That total would hold for one year. The senior speedster eclipsed his own mark by two when he swiped two bases against Cincinnati Country Day in the regional championship game May 29.
Griesinger also held the mark for stolen bases in a career with 55, but Stammen’s record-setting year of 29 put him at 58 for his career, a new program best.
He also has the most at-bats in a season (104) and scored the most runs (37).

Cole Wendel
No one can work a count better than Wendel. The senior lefty walked 29 times this season. The previous high was Brian Wehrkamp’s 24 in 1995.
His patience at the plate is not a one-year ordeal. Wendel has drawn 66 walks in his four years at Fort Recovery, breaking Steve Diller’s total of 57.
Wendel hardly struck out either, doing so a mere four times in 121 at bats this year.

Jackson Hobbs
Pitching with a right knee that wasn’t fully healed as a sophomore, Hobbs broke Kevin Schoenherr’s single-season ERA record of 0.80.
With a healthy knee as a junior, Hobbs matched the 0.76 ERA he set the previous year. If not for an earned run in the sixth inning during the state semifinal Thursday against Newark Catholic, Hobbs would have beaten his own record.
In addition to tying his season-best ERA total, he also won 11 games to match Dale “Whitey” Bruns, who pitched on the 1953 state runner-up squad. Add his 11 wins this year to the eight he recorded as a sophomore and the two from his freshman campaign, Hobbs’ 22 career wins sits second all-time to Bruns’ 26.

Top 10
Jacob Homan, Derek Backs, Wendel and Stammen put up numbers this year that put them on the top 10 all-time in their respective categories.
Wendel scored 33 runs to sit third on the single-season list. He trails only his classmate Stammen (37) and Greg Snyder (36).
Homan, a junior transfer from Celina, drove in 31 runs this season, which puts him fifth. Greg Heitkamp, Brad Bretz and Keith Evers are in a three-way tie for first with 35, and Jarret Tobin sits fourth with 32.
Backs also cracked the top 10 for RBIs in a season with 26.
Stammen and Hobbs are sixth and ninth respectively for hits in a season. Stammen led the Tribe this season with 36 hits from the leadoff spot. He had one double and three triples. Hobbs, who was the 3-hole hitter for FRHS, totaled 34 hits, including six doubles and one triple. Greg Heitkamp is the single-season leader with 42.

Even though the Indians’ title hopes were dashed, it was still a successful season.
But the loss Thursday will still sting for a while.
“I’m done,” Derek Backs muttered following the crushing defeat. “We’re a bunch of scrappy people. We love each other. That’s what makes this thing so hard, because it’s done. It’s over.”
Sure, Backs and the other four seniors — Ben Will, Nate Lochtefeld, Stammen and Wendel — are done playing the game. However, they will never be done reminiscing on their time playing for perhaps the best baseball team in school history.
Their success will be a lasting memory.
“We are …”