Perry baseball recap: Four Bluejays earn conference honors
In just a matter of a few seasons, head coach Michael Craig has completely turned the program around in, fostering a competitive group of student-athletes that hasn’t been seen in nearly a decade in Perry. Now it’s a matter of seeing how much further the success can extend as the roster hits a critical turning point.
Senior Goodbyes
Like the softball team, the Bluejays will have quite a different look as a number of era-defining players are on their way out.
In total, there are five seniors that started at least 10 games for the Bluejays this season, including Juan Hernandez (25 starts), Fausto Beato (24) and Gavin Hegstrom (24) who have been starters since 2019.
Behind a career year at shortstop with a team-high .418 batting average, Beato was named a first-team all-conference infielder. Not only did he cross home plate 16 times, he also drove in 14 runs, the most by a Perry player since Aaron Lockwood’s 17 in 2018. Beato also had the team’s first home run since Kato Dougan in 2020.
Hernandez also earned an honorable mention by the conference’s coaches. After going .100 at the plate as a freshman, the centerfielder strung together three straight seasons of .200 or better. With eight steals to help navigate the bases, he was third on the team with 14 runs scored.
Hegstrom was similarly effective with a .250 batting average along with some solid power that landed three doubles while being a strong anchor in right field.
Not Done Yet
No doubt, there will be some adjustments moving forward without three fixtures of Perry athletics. But the roster still has strong holdovers that have helped steady the ship.
Junior Drake Levan garnered second-team infield honors after leading the team with 19 runs scored. That was undoubtedly spurred by his new presence at the plate with a .315 batting average, doubling his previous two seasons.
Owen Myers saw similar improvement on the mound, cutting his ERA and WHIP in half to 2.47 and 1.20 respectively while boasting a 4-2 record as a sophomore. That well-rounded performance earned him second-team pitcher honors, not even considering his team-leading 12 steals and 17 runs scored.
And behind the dish, Kain Kilmer marked the third year in a row his steal rate decreased. His 16 total saves ranked ninth in the state and earned him an honorable mention selection.
Heart of Iowa Influence?
A renewed spirit among the team and a fresh head coach at the helm aren’t the only things that have changed for the Jays. Like the basketball team which reached a five-year peak this season in Year 2 in the Heart of Iowa, the baseball team seems to have benefitted greatly from the transition into a new conference: Or is that overstated?
A full analysis of the impact of the conference switch is worth investigating in another year with more data points, but it’s not as if every Perry team has seen an immediate upward swing.Last year, it’d be far-fetched to say the Jays saw any forward momentum. Their 1-21 mark was only marginally better than the 0-25 year in 2021 (the last season in the Raccoon River) even when looking at the average scoring margin. There wasn’t a magical climb in the new league.
Using Varsity Bound’s rankings as a baseline: Perry in 2022 faced the 110th hardest schedule and the HOI had an average team rank of 155. This year’s team was pitted against the 148th toughest schedule, and the HOI averaged a rank of 166. That’s hardly enough to grant nine extra wins for a team.
The stats show the big leap Perry made this year came from Perry itself, not just a schedule makeover.
This article originally appeared on Aberdeen News: Perry baseball recap: Four Bluejays earn conference honors
