Soon after Carlyle beat Freeburg last week to win the Mississippi Division of the Cahokia Conference, head coach Dusty Barr gathered his players by the dugout.
His message was simple: Make sure you have a short memory.
"I shook each kids' hand and said, 'I'm very proud of you and everything that you just accomplished, but now, you must forget about what you just accomplished and focus on our next goal,'" Barr said. "Our next goal is winning a regional.
"You have to take it step by step. You can't get ahead of yourself. I told them to be proud of what you accomplished, but be ready to move on."
Ranked first in the News-Democrat Small-School pool, the Indians (18-3) begin postseason play this week as the area favorite to advance to the Class 2A state finals on May 30-31 in Joliet.
Top-seeded Carlyle will take on No. 9-seeded Central (7-20) at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday. Nashville (14-10) takes on Red Bud (11-14) in Thursday's semifinal. The winners will meet at 11 a.m. Saturday in the title game.
Carlyle is 3-0 against the field, having beaten Red Bud 13-3 and Central twice by scores of 13-4 and 11-1.
"The positive is we've beaten (Central) twice but the negative is we've beaten them twice," Barr said. "The third time, they've seen everything we've done. The biggest thing is they've seen our pitcher and the kid they've going to throw (Tommy Bach), we haven't seen."
That Carlyle has outscored Central 24-5 is no surprise. The Indians sport one of the area's top offenses and are averaging 10.4 runs per game.
The Indians have the top four hitters in the metro-east in senior catcher Jake Kampwerth (.534, 11 homers, 42 RBIs), senior shortstop Travis Isaak (.515, 38 RBIs), junior outfielder Josh Rosol (.508, 30 RBIs) and senior outfielder Kurt Peppenhorst (.5-7, 20 RBIs).
Caleb Curry (.407) and Tony Schaeffer (.397, 29 RBIs) are also having strong seasons at the plate.
"Our kids are still going to hit. Are they going to hit at the .500 clip? You never expect that," Barr said. "As long as our kids keep that good approach of swinging at good pitches and swinging at their pitch, they should stay successful. When a kid gets in trouble is when they change their approach. If we keep our approach, we should keep up the hitting."
Barr has two aces in Schaeffer (7-0, 1.01 ERA) and Peppenhorst (7-0, 1.95 ERA). Joe Linton (4-0, 2.33 ERA) is no slouch, either.
"I still call it 1A and 1B," Barr said. "1A is Tony and 1B is Peppenhorst. You pick either guy and throw them out there, they are going to be tough. It's a great luxury to have. If you see something going wrong, you can pull the plug without feeling like you're dropping down a level."
Red Bud's top offensive threats are senior Matt Schwartz (.452, 12 doubles, two homers, 17 RBIs), Andrew Phegley (.372, 13 RBIs) and Eric Piel (.371, 19 RBIs).
Schwartz (2-2, 3.36 ERA) and Caleb Ratz (3-4, 4.97 ERA) are Red Bud's top pitchers.
Columbia Regional
After a 15-1 start, few things have come easy to the defending state champion Columbia Eagles. They have dealt with a 20-6 loss to Carlyle, the loss of star senior pitcher and infielder Trent Blank to a season-ending injury and a retirement announcement by coach Dustin Nail.
Columbia is 5-8 in its last 13 games, but still has enough talent and experience to make a long playoff run.
The Eagles are favored to win their own regional, but it won't be easy with potential threats like Greenville (18-5), Wesclin (12-12) and Metro-East Lutheran (15-11) eager to end their run.
Junior Joel Greatting (6-2, 1.27 ERA) and senior Aaron Floarke (3-2, 2.68 ERA) anchor the Columbia pitching staff.
Greatting (.456, 11 doubles, four triples, five homers, 23 RBIs), Floarke (.392, 11 doubles, seven triples, two homers 35 RBIs) and junior catcher Jarren Galli (.467, eight doubles, 31 RBIs) are the leading run-producers in the lineup along with seniors Tyler Truttmann (.390, 11 doubles, two homers, 24 RBIs) and Sheldon Johns (.375, seven doubles, 20 RBIs).
Columbia takes on the winner of today's quarterfinal game between Gibault and Metro-East Lutheran on Wednesday in the semifinals. Greenville and Wesclin play Thursday in the other semifinal.
Contact reporter Rod Kloeckner at rkloeckner@bnd.com or 239-2663. Contact reporter Norm Sanders at nsanders@bnd.com or 239-2454.
