Well-Balanced Parkway South Dominating Opponents

The baseball team is tearing up opponents, outscoring foes by nearly 100 runs on their way to an undefeated 16-0 start, including an 8-0 mark in the powerful Suburban West Conference.
 
The Patriots defeated Marquette, 5-3, on Tuesday night.

“It doesn’t mean anything at all until the end of the year,” Parkway South head coach Adam Stahl said. “But at the same time it is an honor that people have recognized the hard work we’ve put in during the season and offseason.”

The Patriots are regularly putting up some crooked numbers offensively. Parkway South has scored five or more runs in an inning 10 times this season, including an 11-run first inning against Mehlville on April 16. Their ability to put up the big inning makes it difficult for opposing teams to recover. 

“We’re capable of putting that big inning together, and hopefully we don’t have to depend on that every game because eventually it will catch up and hurt you,” Stahl said.

South boasts several players among the area leaders in major offensive categories. Senior John Calloway is batting a whopping .576, while senior Danny Holst is third in runs scored with 29. The team has four players batting over .440 and seven players with over 10 runs batted in.

“They just like to play hard and compete and they are throwback type kids,” Stahl said.

The Pats are also getting it done on the mound with a deep pitching staff led by three potential aces. Senior Forrest Herrman leads the team with 21 strikeouts, junior Michael Patterson has a 1.35 ERA in a team-leading 31 innings pitched and senior Jackson Crosley has only allowed 11 hits in 19 innings of work giving him an impressive 0.84 WHIP (combined walks and hits allowed per inning).

“We don’t have the shut down guy this year and we have a bend-and-don’t-break kind of staff this year,” Stahl said. “They pitch to contact, but there’s a lot to be said about that in high school baseball and you can win a lot of games with guys like that.”

While Parkway South has blown out some teams with their offensive firepower and stingy pitching, they have put together a few late-inning rallies to keep their undefeated season intact. One of the most exciting of these comeback victories came against Westminster in the fourth game of the season on March 28. South was trailing 5-1 and down to their last three outs before scoring five runs and winning 6-5.

“What we do well-above average is hitting and competing and that keeps us in any game,” Stahl said. “It’s what every coach wants as the character of their team, and they just won’t give up.”

South is coming off last week’s two-game sweep of division foe Lafayette on back-to-back days, which included two more come-from-behind victories. They beat the Lancers 8-6 in the first game and scored three runs in the final inning to win 6-4 in game two of the series last Wednesday.

The Patriots finish the regular season with mainly home-and-home series against their remaining division opponents. South will play at Fox on Thursday in a makeup game, and then will host a highly anticipated matchup against Oakville on Friday at 4 :15 p.m. and then will play at Oakville on Saturday (noon).

“Our conference is arguably the best in the area year in and year out,” Stahl said. “Those are some good teams that we’ll be playing back to back and that’s unique about our conference because you can see the depth of our team and you can develop players.”

The team is looking to rebound after last season’s sectional defeat to Oakville. All the pieces are there for an even deeper postseason run this year.

“It’s approaching, but it’s still too early to start thinking about postseason because we still got an awful lot of baseball to play against some tough teams,” Stahl said.