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Nevada baseball holds end of season banquet
By Eric Wade
Daily Mail Sports Editor
The Nevada Tigers baseball team put a cap on what turned out to be a very successful -- albeit too short for head coach Danny Penn's liking -- season Wednesday night with its end of season awards banquet at Marmaduke Park, Nevada.
"I wish we were still playing," Penn said.
At the banquet, Penn went through a series of "thank yous" before awarding certificates to all of his players as recognition for their participation and gifts for the seniors. After certificates and senior gifts were presented, awards for Most Valuable Player, Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year, and the Tiger Baseball Award were presented, based on statistics and player votes.
The first of those awards was the Offensive Player of the Year Award, which went to Taylor Manes. Manes finished the season with a .385 batting average, .494 on-base percentage, .523 slugging percentage -- all of which led the team -- four doubles, one triple, one home run, 15 RBIs, 21 runs scored and 11 stolen bases.
Which player most deserved the Defensive Player of the Year Award wasn't nearly as easy a decision to make as both Cole Sanderson and Lane Ketterman made a strong case for why they should get the award. Sanderson was the Tigers' regular catcher, but also played third base and pitched, providing a strong defensive presence at every one of those positions, while Ketterman was a force in center field, using his exceptional speed to track down nearly every ball hit toward his portion of the outfield.
Thanks to the very strong arguments made by those performances, Sanderson and Ketterman shared the award.
The Tiger Baseball Award was one Penn and his staff invented to recognize the member of the team who sets the best example as a leader, both on and off the field. That award went to senior Alex Francis.
Easton Mitchell finished the season with a .345 batting average, .460 on-base percentage, 15 RBIs, 22 runs scored, nine stolen bases and a team-high 29 hits. As a pitcher, he went 6-1 with a 3.89 ERA, 23 strikeouts and seven walks in 36 innings.
Those statistics, on top of his exceptional play at shortstop, made Mitchell an obvious choice for the Most Valuable Player Award.
As a team, the Tigers entered the 2013 season as the ninth-ranked team in the state in Class 4, according to the poll taken by the Missouri High School Baseball Coaches' Association. Though the Tigers weren't able to stay in the rankings, Penn's squad finished what turned out to be a very strong season with a school-record 17 wins -- including a third-place finish in the Forsyth Tournament and a second-place showing in the Bill O'Dell Tournament, in Carthage -- before falling to Warrensburg in the Class 4, District 12 tournament championship game.