Colo-NESCO baseball season was filled with highs and lows

The Colo-NESCO baseball team went on a roller coaster ride in 2023.

The Royals started strong, hit a rough patch in the middle of the season the ended the regular season playing well. They finished 11-12 overall and finished in a three-way tie with Baxter and North Tama for second in the Iowa Star Conference South Division with an 8-7 conference mark.

"The team was resilient," Colo-NESCO coach Brandon Frohwein said. "There were a few times we had a tough loss and didn’t handle it the way we could have as a team. But the guys came back and battled and improved our mentality in close games down the stretch which allowed us to perform better in those games. Even though we didn’t win all of them, I felt like our attitude was much better down the stretch. Ultimately, just going out and competing every night with the team and playing baseball is always enjoyable."

Colo-NESCO defeated Clarion-Goldfield-Dows (9-1), Melcher-Dallas (10-5) and BCLUW (15-2) in its first three games. The Royals fell to eventual ISC South champ Collins-Maxwell (3-2) and Madrid (15-5) in their next two games, but then they defeated North Tama (17-11) and GMG (5-4).

Injuries started to take a toll on the team in the middle of the season. The Royals lost to BCLUW (5-1) and Collins-Maxwell (12-1), defeated Riceville (5-2) then fell to Williamsburg (10-0), Baxter (6-5), West Central Valley (17-8) and Gladbrook-Reinbeck (12-2) during their first seven games in June.

The Royals scored a 10-4 win over Belmond-Klemme on June 13, but then lost to Don Bosco (11-6) and North Tama (6-4). They finished out June by winning four of their final six games of the regular season.

Colo-NESCO defeated Clarksville (13-5) and Janesville (6-5), lost to Grand View Christian (5-2) and then beat GMG (5-4) and Dunkerton (11-1) before concluding the regular season with an 8-2 non-conference loss to Colfax-Mingo. The Royals hosted South Hamilton in the Class 1A District 3 quarterfinals on July 3, and they sputtered offensively in suffering an 8-0 loss to end the season.

Frohwein was happy with the way his team played over the final couple of weeks despite falling short in districts.

"The turning point probably came as we started getting everyone healthy the last two weeks of the season," Frohwein said. "We were able to win our last four conference games over that span, including a win over Janesville, a team we hadn’t beaten since 2017. The push allowed us to move from near the bottom of the conference all the way to a tie for second place."

Frohwein said a 15-strikeout performance from senior pitcher Spencer Hansen in the opening win over Clarion-Goldfield-Dows, and the 18 combined strikeouts from Hansen and Drew Banks in the game, was a big highlight for Colo-NESCO during the season. The Royal coach also enjoyed the back-to-back wins over North Tama and GMG and he said the victory over Janesville was the biggest of the season.

As a team Colo-NESCO scored 147 runs hitting .221 with 22 doubles, five triples, four home runs, 126 walks and 66 steals. The Royals gave up 174 runs with a pitching staff ERA of 4.46 and team fielding average of 91.2%.

"The biggest strength of the 2023 team was probably the pitching staff (and) I felt we probably grew the most fielding," Frohwein said. "The biggest weakness was probably our hitting. We did not hit as well as a team as we have the last few seasons. We did still have a respectable on-base percentage, but we struggled to hit for average."

Hansen concluded his career as Colo-NESCO's all-time leader in hits (123), doubles (33), RBIs (84), pitching victories (20) and assists (163).

During his senior season Hansen was 6-3 with a 2.17 ERA, 66 strikeouts and 24 walks in 42 innings. He hit .295 with seven doubles, one triple, three home runs, 20 runs, 18 RBIs and seven steals.

Hansen also made 45 assists and 17 putouts in the field.

Banks was the other big arm for the Colo-NESCO pitching staff. The Royal junior went 4-2 with a 2.41 ERA, 60 strikeouts and 34 walks in 49 1/3 innings.

Banks hit .268 on offense with three doubles, 13 runs and nine RBIs. He made 36 assists and 18 putouts in the field.

Freshman Isaac Harrington hit .292 and juniors Lucas Frohwein and Trenton Beard hit .289 and .265 respectively for Colo-NESCO.

Harrington had two doubles and he finished with 11 runs and 19 RBIs. Frohwein tallied one double, three triples, one home run, 14 steals and 11 runs and RBIs apiece and Beard finished with five doubles, 11 steals, 28 runs and 15 RBIs.

In the field Harrington had five errors in 141 chances, Frohwein no errors in 15 chances and Beard three errors in 28 chances. Beard was also 1-4 with a 3.35 ERA in 23 innings and Frohwein 0-1 with a 5.91 ERA in 10 2/3 innings on the mound.

Senior catcher Kaleb Gray hit .240 with three doubles and six RBIs. He threw out six base runners and only had three errors in 205 chances, finishing his career as the school record holder for chances (775), putouts (662), fielding percentage (.974) and runners thrown out (32) by a catcher.

Sophomore Breckin Clatt hit .206 with 18 steals, 13 runs and eight RBIs. Clatt only made two errors in 25 chances on defense.

Senior Clay Gilmore set the Royal record for times hit by a pitch with 14 and he had an OBP of .373 with 13 runs and four RBIs. Gilmore made 19 assists and 17 putouts in the field.

Gannon Short only recorded three errors in 20 chances and he scored eight runs and drove in five on offense. Freshman Landon Gjerde scored nine runs and drove in six and he only had two errors on defense in 28 chances.

James Cochran scored twice and drove in three runs in 24 at-bats.

Next season Colo-NESCO will have huge shoes to fill with the loss of Hansen, Gray, Gilmore and Cochran, along with senior leader Asher Grover. But the Royals have enough quality players coming back to make a run at a winning season in 2024.

"The 2024 team returns three juniors in Trenton Beard, Drew Banks, and Lucas Frohwein," Brandon Frohwein said. "These three will be relied upon to be leaders of the team. All three of them can pitch and provide significant offense to the team. We will also return Breckin Clatt and Gannon Short next year. They are both very strong defensively and have potential to make a big jump offensively. We will need guys that played supportive roles this year to be key contributors."

This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: Colo-NESCO's 2023 baseball season was filled with peaks and valleys