Prep Baseball Report

PBR Michigan Division 4 Team Of The Week - Decatur


Bruce Hefflinger
PBR Michigan Senior Writer

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PBR Michigan Division 4 Team Of The Week - Decatur

DECATUR - With essentially eight starters back from a year ago, expectations were high for Decatur in 2019. Six wins in a seven-day stretch has the Raiders at 21-6 on the season and the honor of being the Michigan Prep Baseball Report Division 4 Team of the Week.

“We’ve been winning games because we’re better than the teams we’ve been playing,” Decatur head coach Ben Botti said. “But there are things we can do better. The six losses get at me. We’re a pretty talented team, but we haven’t peaked yet. We’ve got two weeks left in the regular season … so hopefully.”

Strong pitching has helped carry Decatur this year.

“This is probably the most depth we’ve had pitching since we’ve been here,” said the 25th-year head coach of the Raiders, who led the school to a state baseball championship in 2012. “You kind of have to have it with the new pitching rules.”

It starts with senior right-handers Jakob Southworth (Video from 2017) and Travis Hunsberger, a pair of Spring Arbor signees. Southworth is 7-1 with a 1.17 ERA in 42 innings of work while Hunsberger is 5-3 with a 2.21 ERA in 38 frames on the hill.

“He was on the short end of a couple bad innings we had defensively,” Botti said of Hunsberger.

Junior left-hander Peyton Ebeling is the number three pitcher with a 3-2 record and 1.05 ERA.

“We have five junior pitchers that are good,” Botti noted. “We’re lucky to be able to spread the pitching around and not burn anybody up too bad.”

The solid staff has been backed by a team featuring four players averaging .400 or better at the plate.

“That’s partially due to a weak schedule,” admitted Botti, whose Raiders have a team batting average of .369. “Unfortunately there are two or three teams in our league that are not very good. But we’ve had some guys that have come on and are starting to figure it out. Steadily our offense has improved over the course of the season with a few more at-bats and the weather warming up a little bit.”

Southworth, who plays first base when not pitching, leads Decatur with a .460 batting average. Junior second baseman Ben Serven is batting .438 with junior left fielder Colin Warkentien at .414. Senior Justin Gale, a third baseman who leads the Raiders in RBIs with 33, is hitting .410 with junior catcher Hunter Slavings at .409.

Botti points to a pair of surprises that has helped out the team this year.

“We have a kid that’s a junior who did not play last year,” Botti said about Payton Hoekstra, primarily a relief pitcher who is 1-0 in 15 innings of work with a 1.87 ERA. “He’s been a real pleasant surprise. He came in as an unknown that we thought could be pretty good, but he’s been real effective.

“Another surprise has been Ben Serven the way he’s hit the ball. He’s leading off for us and doing a great job. Those are two big surprises for us.”

With the schedule getting tougher ahead, including doubleheaders with Constantine on Friday and Comstock next week, Botti stresses improvement is needed.

“Against the better teams on our schedule we haven’t played complete games,” Botti noted. “We lose focus mentally and have one bad inning in our losses. In order to make another run like last year - and I was disappointed in how we finished last year - our focus needs to get better.”