Highland Post 439 legion baseball bounces back strong in 2023 summer season
After struggling to just six wins in 2022, the Highland Post 439 Senior Legion baseball team turned things around this summer and had several more good days on the diamond.
Thanks to better pitching, improved defense, and solid hitting, Post 439 finished the 2023 campaign with a sturdy 13-10 record and a good feeling of progress.
Highland manager Todd Kunz was quite happy to see his team turn into a gritty, competitive, and focused unit.
“I was super happy with how things turned out,” Kunz said. “They really picked it up there and started doing really well and finished three games over .500 and I was very content with that. Especially after the rough season last year, to turn it around that much was to me a pretty big deal.”
Highland started the season slowly, but a 10-6 home win over Trenton Post 778 on June 21 got Post 439 back to .500 at 8-8 and the club seemed to finally hit their stride.
Post 439 got hot down the final stretch of the season in mid-July winning five of it last seven games — including four-straight — before entering the District 22 playoff series with Alton.
Highland split the first two games July 15 at Lloyd Hopkins Field in Gordon Moore Park in Alton before dropping a 2-1 heartbreaker to Alton in the District 22 championship game July 16.
Improved pitching was a huge help to Post 439 as Colton Bultema led the way for the Highland pitching staff. Bultema — heading to Blackburn College to pitch next spring — was the staff ace with a 0.58 ERA.
“Colton Bultema was a big pitcher for us and he was just tremendous and did a great job,” Kunz said.
Nathan Terhaar — a senior-to-be at Father McGivney — also excelled on the mound, giving Post 439 quality starts each outing this summer.
“Those two pitchers really improved our pitching this year,” Kunz said.
Improved offense, defense
Strong hitting also aided Post 439 as Tyson Kunz (.444), Justin Terhaar (.429) and Eric Potthast (.385) helped Highland increase its team hitting to a robust .294 average.
Potthast had a late season surge that Kunz was glad to see happen for the infielder who struggled in 2022 and the first half of this summer.
“I saw glimpses of what he could do last season, but the last half of this season, he really turned it on and that was good to see,” Kunz said.
Infield defense also improved for Highland as the club committed just 48 errors — the majority of which happened the first 13 games of the season — but the biggest help to the defense was players settling into their spots with better pitching.
“I think the big thing was, in the second half of the season, we came out and cleaned things up (defensively) this year,” Kunz said.
Glimpse into next season
As Highland looks to 2024, Kunz will have four players to replace for next year’s club and he’s hopeful a few more players will come out next year to help Post 439 move deeper into the legion playoffs.
“It’s hard to say at this point who we’ll end up with and how that will work, but it would be nice after a pretty good season to see some kids around thinking ‘hey, let’s go be a part of this program and see how far we could take this team’ ... and get a few more kids interested (in playing) to put something together for next year,” Kunz said.
