Bloomington South grad Trevor McConnell has Barr-Reeve baseball streaking to state

Once May gets here, high school baseball season goes by like a 103 mph fastball.

So as the win streak piled up, Trevor McConnell knew it was happening. He was so caught up in the moment he never realized just how big it had gotten. Some 28 wins in a row later, his Barr-Reeve team is in the state finals for the second time in school history, taking on Lafayette Central Catholic in the Class 1A title game on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. at Victory Field in Indianapolis.

The Bloomington South grad, a former head coach at Eastern Greene and assistant with the Panthers, is as amazed as anyone with the run his 29-3 Vikings have made.

"All through that winning streak, we talked about not worrying about it," said McConnell, now in his third year at Barr-Reeve. "I told the guys I just wanted a chance to win by playing good, clean baseball. Pitch it well and make routine plays, do that and if we lose the game, tip your cap and not feel like you gave the game away."

The only win streak that really mattered, however, came in the postseason and Barr-Reeve kept right on trucking.

"We kept ripping off wins," McConnell said. "The number is staggering, but did I realize it? I wasn't counting. It was pretty remarkable. The month of May flies by. April seems to drag, then everything goes at warp speed.

"The guy from the local paper asked me if I realized we hadn't lost since the Washington game (on April 7). I still feel like the Washington game was yesterday and now we've won 28 games and we're in the state game. It's surreal."

And given the vagaries of high school baseball it's simply stunning, especially for a 1A school and one that plays a stout schedule.

"I don't think outside of coaches and athletic administrators, I don't think anybody understands just how hard that is," South baseball coach Phil Kluesner, who will be heading to Victory Field to root on McConnell's Vikings and the Brownstown squad in the 3A game led by former Panther assistant Duane Higgs. "They don't play slouch teams.

"And the way each week is set up. Is it three, four, five games? How's your pitching line up? There's always a game you feel like you could have or should have won but didn't because the pitching matchup didn't work in your favor. It's very difficult."

Consider that in McConnell's first year as a head coach in 2009 (at age 23), his Eastern Greene team went 5-17 in the regular season, dropping 10 of its last 12, then won sectional title.

Strong coaching tree

McConnell, a 2005 South grad, started his high school career in Louisiana, winning a state title his freshman season under a hall of fame coach in M.L. Woodruff. He then played for another at South in Grier Werner and then Tracy Smith at Indiana University.

His father Bob was a football coach at South and IU and Trevor followed him into the profession. At Eastern Greene, he led the T-Birds to their last sectional title in 2013 and into the regional final before falling to eventual champ South Spencer.

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Back at his alma mater, he was an assistant under Kluesner from 2014-18 then decided he wanted to try being a head coach again. He went to Barr-Reeve in 2019, working for a year under Joe Rademacher, who planned to retire and turn things over to McConnell. He had to wait another year to get started due to COVID and has gone 68-19 since.

Along the way, he picked up all the things that made him the coach he is now and so he feels in some way he'll be representing them in Saturday's final.

"My experience with Phil, that was a really valuable time for me," McConnell said. "When you're the head coach, you're so focused on the day to day stuff and as an assistant, you can step back and say, 'Oh, I like that. I'd like to expand on that.

"You can take a broader step back and evaluate what you want to do if you get another opportunity. I'm grateful I've had a lot of good mentors and coaches who taught me the game and made an impression on me and guided my philosophy."

"His dad was a tremendous coach," Kluesner said. "His attention to detail and the way he organizes things down to every minute detail, it sets him up for success."

When McConnell was ready, Barr-Reeve offered everything he was looking for, from strong community and administrative support to a good supply of athletes who were used to winning. The district also made investments in the program, including a new indoor training facility and upgrades to the baseball field.

The girls' volleyball and boys' basketball teams were perennially one of the top teams in 1A, so why shouldn't the baseball team be any different?

"I didn't just want to leave Bloomington for anything," McConnell said. "I was drawn in immediately and it was something where I felt like this job had the potential to be special."

A special season

But it's not like he had visions of grandeur that 2023 was going to be the magical season that finally snapped a regional drought that went back to 1998.

It was a talented group, sure. Good pitching depth (team ERA 2.15, 174 strikeouts to just 54 walks) that allowed him to keep the arms fresh, strong hitting (.403 team average) and good speed that gave the team multiple ways to score runs (9.3 per game) and solid defense. They rose to No. 1 in the rankings, but what the Vikings have done this season is just so unpredictable.

"You're always dreaming of the opportunity to make it to state," McConnell said. "That's always your ultimate goal, to get to Victory Field and compete for a title, but to think I knew this would be the group? I can't say that definitively.

"We believed we could but baseball is weird. So many things have to go right, you have to have good starting pitching and there are so many variables. I'm not surprised but at the beginning of the season, I wasn't making any declarations."

Just getting out of sectional is tricky enough, then there was Tecumseh, a traditional roadblock they didn't have to deal with this time around. They won the regional 10-0 then that pitching depth paid off with two thrilling wins at semistate, 3-1 over Greenwood Christian and 4-2 over Shakamak.

"In our sport, you just try to survive and advance," McConnell said. "We've obviously played really well and coming into the tournament, we got some momentum and here we are, only one win from a state title."

Small town, big dreams

The big crowds and attention normally reserved for the girls' volleyball and boys' basketball teams has been a part of the baseball scene in Montgomery this spring. It's sort of their own version of Hoosiers as each win keeps piling up and the caravans on the highways get longer and longer.

Yeah, McConnell had his "Norman Dale moment" with the team, taking them on a tour of Victory Field on Tuesday, since the participating teams are no longer allowed to practice at the facility beforehand. The Vikes and starter Seth Wagler will have enough to worry about with LCC (24-12) — which has won eight state titles, all since 2004 — and Murray State-bound ace Ben Mazur.

"I wanted them to see the place now instead of the first time being when we're walking in trying to get ready to play," McConnell said. "So we get the oohing and aahing out of the way.

"It's still 90 feet to each base and 60 feet, 6 inches. It's all the same once the first pitch is thrown. It's the same game, it's who can execute."

His team's chemistry will have as much to do with that as their talent.

"More than anything, this group of kids play for each other, the name on the chest," McConnell said. "They play for their community and their school more than themselves. I think that's our secret sauce.

"They've seen what the volleyball and basketball teams have done and ask, 'Why not us?'"

Contact Jim Gordillo at jgordillo@heraldt.com and follow on Twitter @JimGordillo.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: IHSAA baseball: Trevor McConnell has Barr-Reeve streaking to state