Jess Suda has missed 11 baseball games this spring because of swelling in his knee related to an old injury. When he has played lately, Suda has been told by his Grafton High School coaches to slow down a little and take it easy on the knee.
The junior can’t do it.
“It’s not my style,’’ Suda said. “I don’t have fun if I’m not going with everything I have.
“And that’s how it is for all of us. We have good speed. We’re all aggressive, going for extra bases.’’
There has been a need for speed in the Grafton starting lineup. It has produced only five home runs, all of those from two players. But the Spoilers have run to a 22-5 record and their eighth consecutive trip to the North Dakota Class B state tournament, which begins Thursday in Jamestown. Second-seeded Grafton plays Kindred-Richland in the tournament opener at 11:30 a.m.
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“Most of our guys are aggressive,’’ Grafton coach Chad Kliniske said. “They hit the ball and they’re thinking extra bases right away. They want to get themselves into scoring position.’’
Zak Hernandez has three home runs. Charlie Thompson has two. That’s it. But the team has 83 stolen bases, led by Brett Longtin with 23 and Hernandez with 22. There are 51 doubles and 18 triples, nine of those by Suda.
“We’ve had guys with nine home runs in a season,’’ Kliniske said. “I can’t remember anybody with nine triples. That’s a lot. Jess hits the gaps, gets the ball to the fence and, when he’s healthy, he can fly.
“He could maybe have a few more triples if his knee wasn’t acting up. We’ve tried to slow him down. There were a couple of times when he’s been so aggressive out there and I’ve asked him what he’s doing. He just says he wants to be a sparkplug.’’
The power is down from a year ago, when Grafton had six players hit a combined total of 12 home runs in 20 games entering the state tournament. But, with the power down, Grafton is still averaging 10.1 runs a game with speed and balance.
In a sport where .300 is considered the mark of excellence, Grafton has five regulars with batting averages of better than .400 - Hernandez (.500), Suda (.491), Longtin (.444), Charlie Thompson (.418) and Garek Droog (.407). The Spoilers’ team average is .363.
“One through nine, we’ve been a more consistent hitting team this year,’’ Kliniske said.
“We’ve had to score a lot of runs. Pitching and catching the ball, we aren’t where we’ve been in the past. We’re giving up some runs. But we’re scoring a lot of runs, too.’’
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Hunter Baldwin (5-1, 1.70 ERA), Jaron Lunday (3-0, 0.72) and Tyler Kliniske (2-0, 1.56) have put up the top pitching numbers. But there isn’t a dominant type of hurler such as Jaime Villarreal, an all-stater who graduated last spring.
“It’s hard to find somebody to replace a pitcher like Jaime,’’ Chad Kliniske said. “We don’t have an ace type. What we have is several good high school pitchers. They throw strikes and we’ve made some big defensive plays behind them.’’
