By: Mike McMurran
Sports Editor
The St. Charles High Baseball Pirates will make their first trip to Columbia and the Class 3 Baseball Championships since 1997 this weekend. Led by senior Brad Bichel’s two hit, shut out victory over St. Francis Borgia in quarterfinal action, the Pirates will compete for the chance of bringing home the first state baseball title in the school’s history.
“With this group of seniors I think that anything less than reaching the final 4 would have been a disappointment,” shared head coach Charlie Meeker. In addition to Bichel, those seven seniors include: Ryan Eisenbath, Nick Roth, Kyle Boschert, Brian Randazzo, Caleb Orf and Shane Roemer. “Bichel, Boschert and Randazzo have played together on a team called the Cobras since they were youngsters,” Meeker said, “pretty much the entire group has been best friends for some time.”
In Meeker’s only previous trip to the final 4 as a head coach in ’97, the Pirates finished 4th. Prior to that the Pirates first and only trip to the final 4 was 1993; Meeker served as an assistant on that squad.
Bichel had this ending in mind since the beginning of the season. “From day one this was our goal. If we didn’t make it to state our season wouldn’t have been complete. If we had not made it to state we would have felt it was a bad season, no matter what the record was.” Randazzo agreed. “This whole season has been fun,” he said, “the entire team gets along really well, everyone gives 100 percent effort, we just do our job – and now we reap the benefits. This really is the icing on the cake,” offered the former First Capitol News Athlete of the Week.
Boschert is happy but made it clear the season is not over. “Yeah, it’s been a great season, but we still gotta go out there and get two more. To be so close is an awesome feeling “To win state and get a banner in the gym would be the ultimate.”
The Pirates are scheduled to take on Pacific in semifinal action on Friday at 5 p.m. The winner will take on the winner of the Webb City (23-4) and Benton (24-1) game in Saturday’s 8 p.m. Championship game. All games will be played at Taylor Stadium on the University of Missouri campus.
