Yutan and Waverly Add Baseball for 2009

October 13, 2008

Last year's district assignment scheme in Class B placed four teams in each of four district tournaments.  According to the Nebraska School Activities Association website (www.nsaahome.org), there will again be four district tournaments in Class B for 2009, presumably with two four-team districts and two five-team districts.  The district tournament winners plus four wild card teams will comprise the eight-team Class B state tournament field.  (See Explanation of Wild Card Points System for further reference). 

Adding baseball at Yutan fits into that district's overall objective of increasing participation in student activities, according to YHS Activities Director Dan Tietjen.  "We've had good participation in spring sports, but our board felt that this was an opportunity to get even more kids involved," said Tietjen.  "As far as impacting track or other spring sports, our coaches do a pretty good job of working together to accomplish what is best for the kids -- to provide more opportunities to get more kids involved."

The addition of Class B in 2008 really opened the door for Yutan to add baseball, observed Tietjen.  "That was huge for us.  It reduced the intimidation factor of starting up a new program.  We've had a successful Legion baseball program here for years, and these kids have already been playing a lot of the Class B teams during summer ball."  The addition of Class B had a second impact on Yutan's decision to add baseball.  According to the NSAA bylaws no more than three schools can combine in "co-op" arrangements for competition in high school activities except that four-school co-ops are permitted in "single class sports".  Thus, when baseball ceased to be a single class sport in 2008, the former four-team Wahoo-Mead-Prague-Raymond Central co-op was no longer permitted.  As a result, Mead left the Wahoo co-op arrangement and will co-op with Yutan for 2009.  "It's a natural for us since we already co-op with Mead in softball.  (Note: that Yutan / Mead softball team is the #1 seed in this weekend's Class C-2 state tournament.)  Co-oping with Mead gives us the additional kids that we need to make this work, plus they bring some experienced varsity players from last year's team," observed Tietjen.

Yutan, with 122 students in grades 9-11, is Class C-2 in most sports while Mead is D-1 with 62 students in those grades.  The total of 184 students makes Yutan the second-smallest baseball program, ranking between Douglas County West (138) and Omaha Roncalli (242) in terms of enrollment.  Yutan, a town of approximately 1,200, is located in the westernmost part of the Omaha Metro Area, just west of the Elkhorn and Platte Rivers on West Center Road (Highway 92) near the Two Rivers State Recreation Area. 

John Arensberg, the Yutan varsity boys basketball coach for the past three years, has been selected as the Chieftains' first head baseball coach, according to Tietjen.  Arensberg, an outfielder for Dana College in the early 90's, observed that his initial challenges will be getting to know his players, assessing their baseball skills and coming up with enough pitching.  "We have about 25 kids who seem to be pretty interested in participating and nearly all of them played Legion ball last summer," he noted.  "Having three returning players from Mead is a plus."  Arensberg will be assisted by his current assistant basketball coach, Mike Peitzmeier.  "Mike will head up our JV team and will work with the pitchers at both levels," said Arensberg.  "He's been around baseball quite a bit, working with select teams in Omaha for quite a few years."

Currently, the Chieftains have about 20 games scheduled for the spring, including one tournament.  "We'd like to get a few more games on the schedule," stated Tietjen, "particularly another tournament or two."  Teams interested in adding Yutan to their schedule can contact Mr. Tietjen at (402) 625-2241 or dtietjen@esu2.org.  The Chieftains will play their home games at Itan Park in Yutan.   

Last spring's decision by the Waverly school board to add baseball was the culmination of an approximately five-year effort, according to WHS Activities Director Jack Guggenmos.  "The original inquiry about adding baseball came from just a couple of folks in the district, but it picked up a  lot of momentum over the past several years," commented Guggenmos.  "From an administrative perspective, we just had to make sure that the addition of a fourth boys' sport in the spring (in addition to track and field, soccer and golf) wasn't going to negatively impact our ability to be competitive in each sport."  To assess those impacts, the school system surveyed boys in grades five through ten to gauge interest in the four sports.  "The results of the survey were very encouraging," stated Guggenmos.  "Based on the level of interest expressed, we concluded that we'll be able to present competitive teams in each of the four sports." 

With the administrative concerns addressed, Mr. Guggenmos took a proposal to the Board of Education.  "Due to the financial outlay involved, the Board was not quick to approve our proposal," noted Guggenmos.  But, finally, a funding plan was agreed upon, and the Board gave its blessing last spring.  "This was largely driven by the fact that so many Class B schools are adding baseball as an option," stated Mr. Guggenmos.  "If we can offer what is available in most of the Class B schools in this state without reducing our ability to be competitive in the other spring sports, then it's time to do this." 

Waverly has hired longtime Lincoln Public Schools assistant coach Mike Goodrich to get the new program up and running.  "I'm really excited about Mike," stated Mr. Guggenmos.  "We did an extensive search and feel that we got a guy who can get our program off to a good start.  Both he and assistant coach Gene Lessman bring as much baseball experience as we could have possibly hoped for." 

Goodrich, a teacher at LPS's Irving Middle School, has been an assistant under Lincoln Southeast's Randy Brolhorst and head junior varsity coach for the Knights for the past eight years.  Prior to that, he was an assistant at Lincoln East under longtime coach Bob Greco (unrelated to Westside head coach Bob Greco) and also coached in the Lincoln Rebels select program.  Lessman was a veteran head softball coach at Southeast who also served as the Knights' freshman baseball coach until he retired from coaching a few years ago.  Goodrich, a Concordia College player back in the late 70's, talked Lessman, a former opponent who played for Nebraska Wesleyan, out of retirement to help him with the Knights' JV team for the past two years.  The duo will stay together to take on the challenge of starting up the new program at Waverly.

"I went to a lot of Waverly's Legion games this summer," observed Coach Goodrich.  "There is huge interest in the community about getting this program going.  There were three Legion teams this summer that will feed our program.  I expect we'll have somewhere between 20 and 35 guys for our two teams."  At this time, the Vikings have 22-25 games on the schedule but would like to add a few more, according to Goodrich.  Interested teams can contact Mr. Guggenmos at (402) 786-3011 or jguggenm@esu6.org.

The Vikings will play their home games off-campus at the city's Wayne Park for the time being, according to Mr. Guggenmos.  "The city is building a new sports facility north of town that will have softball and baseball fields and tennis courts.  Eventually, we'll have an outstanding home field at that facility." 

Waverly is a community of approximately 2,500 located in western Lancaster County, approximately ten miles from Lincoln along I-80 and Highway 6.  This high school is a mid-size Class B with 392 students in grades 9-11.