Published: May 07, 2008 11:03 pm            

Amey Takes AIm: Anything can happen in Valley prep baseball

TERRE HAUTE — Pretty much everything you need to know about postseason high school baseball in western Indiana could have been learned by watching the Big Four Classic that started Saturday and wasn’t determined until Monday night.

Wait a minute, I hear you asking yourself. Wasn’t that the tournament in which the last-place team handed the championship team its only loss? What can we learn from a mish-mosh like that?

Exactly, and that’s my point. Anybody claiming to have a clue about how the upcoming sectionals will turn out — particularly the Class 4A affair that will be back at Northview in a little less than three weeks — is probably fooling themselves.

How could anyone possibly predict the outcome of a third game between Terre Haute North and Terre Haute South, for example? Each team has quite a bit of talent and quite a few flaws, so no lead is safe and the most important pitch of the game is likely to be the very last one.

I’ve seen the first two meetings and I’d be tickled pink to watch a third … but a lot of people watch hockey for the fights and auto racing for the crashes too. If I were sitting in either dugout — actually I’d be pacing, not sitting — for one of those games instead of in a comfortable chair behind the plate, I’d probably have to be sedated afterward.

And don’t count Northview out of this thing either. The Knights don’t have a sparkling record, but they showed signs of getting back on track Saturday. The Knights have also seen all three of the eastern teams who will be at the sectional, and they are not intimidated at all by what Martinsville, Mooresville or Plainfield might bring to the tournament.

My sources for those latter scouting reports are Tom Barr and Chuck Peters, parents of two Northview seniors, and they are in this column because they helped keep a poor, pathetic Tribune-Star sportswriter alive during Saturday’s four games by loaning him (me) gloves and buying him (me) handwarmers. Chuck, one of my all-time favorite Baesler IGA players, even offered me some Carhartts, but frankly it’s not a slimming look.

But we all survived those four games, and someone will survive the Class 4A sectional. The baseball then might not always be perfect, but I bet it will be more than a little interesting.

I’ve only seen two of the teams who will be in the Class 3A sectional, but West Vigo and Brown County might be the best two — and the tournament is at Brown County.

Pitching will probably determine that sectional winner and it’s possible the Vikings — who do the hitting and fielding things awfully, awfully well — might have an ace (literally) in the hole by that time.

But if none of the big schools in western Indiana put things together for a long postseason run, there’s still a Victory Field possibility or two.

How about a Class A state championship game next month between Rockville and Shakamak, for example? Or would that be Rockville and Clay City? This could be a season when the Wabash River Conference sectional champion heading north could be a good thing for the Tribune-Star — and if that champion is you, Rox, a little LCC payback would be fun.



Andy Amey can be reached after 4 p.m. for comments or news items at (812) 231-4277 or at 1-800-783-8742; by e-mail at andy.amey@tribstar.com; by mail at P.O. Box 149, Terre Haute, IN, 47808; or by fax at (812) 231-4321.

        

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