Talented pitching staff tries to carry Sandpoint baseball back to state

SANDPOINT — Last spring was all about redemption for the Sandpoint baseball team.

COVID-19 ruined that pursuit, but this team hasn’t forgotten that they were 90 feet away from tying a winner-take-all district championship game at Lakeland in 2019.

That loss is something these players never want to feel again and the Bulldogs have a group that is determined to learn from their past mistakes.

After a year absent of a spring baseball season, head coach Chase Tigert and his team are unsure what to expect from their district rivals, but they aren’t focused on what’s happening outside War Memorial Field.

“I don’t know what Lakeland or Moscow is going to bring to the table this year,” Tigert said, “but what I do know is we’re going to be prepared to handle anything that anyone throws our way, and that’s kind of the approach we’re taking.”

The offseason was certainly different for the Bulldogs due to the pandemic, but for the most part it was business as usual, Tigert said. The team squeezed in what they could when they could given the restrictions and Tigert said he could feel the excitement to get back on the field this spring build as each month passed.

Given all the uncertainty entering this season, Sandpoint is fortunate they have seven seniors to lean on — Trevor Brackett, Avery Bocksch, Cameron Garcia, Max Thielbahr, Evan Williams, Mike Riley and Braden Johnson.

Bocksch was one of several Bulldogs that got some action on the diamond this summer. He played in 12 games for the North Idaho Lakers 19U team before having his season cut short due to a rise in COVID-19 cases.

It wasn’t much, but it was more than most and Bocksch loved every second he got.

“It was nice to get outside in the sun and do some stuff,” he said. “It had been a long time since I had played, so it was great to get out on the field.”

Thielbahr was also able to get some playing time over the summer for Northwest Premier Baseball Club. Over the winter, Thielbahr said the team got together three times a week at about 6:30 a.m. to prepare for the upcoming season.

The past year for spring athletes hasn’t certainly been a grind, but Thielbahr has stayed committed to his craft and that dedication paid off recently when he committed to play baseball at Occidental College in Los Angeles next year.

Thielbahr said it feels good to have the college recruiting process and the pressure of trying to impress scouts out of the way. Now he can just focus on baseball.

“It’s definitely a nice relief,” he said. “I’ll obviously still play at my highest level I can, but it’s a little burden off the shoulders.”

With nothing to evaluate from last season, Tigert said the team hit the ground running during tryouts with eight coaches and plenty of drills to see where his players stand.

“If we didn’t do that, we would have been going into this blind,” he said, “but that was really helpful.”

One player that wouldn’t have seen the field at all last season regardless of the circumstances is junior pitcher Ethan Butler.

Butler had surgery last January for a torn labrum in his throwing arm. As a freshman, Butler earned all-league honors and he hasn’t stepped foot on the mound for the Bulldogs since.

Butler was on the court for a good portion of the Sandpoint basketball season this winter, but he still isn’t back at 100 percent throwing wise. However, in the next few weeks he hopes to ease himself back on the bump.

The rehab process has been long and strenuous, Butler said, but he wants to make sure he doesn’t come back too early and suffer a setback.

The key for Butler this season will be communication. He said he needs to be willing to tell the coaches when he may be pushing his shoulder too far and not let his competitive drive take over.

“I don’t want to hurt the team,” he said.

Given how long it’s been since Butler has taken the field, he can’t wait to make his return.

“I’ve been anxious,” he said. “The anticipation has been building, building, building and now that it’s here, I’m having the time of my life.”

With mild temperatures in the first week of March and on artificial turf to play on, the Bulldogs are practicing outside earlier than ever before. It’s so strange to the team that it doesn’t seem real.

“It doesn’t really feel like March right now,” Bocksch said. “Usually our first couple games are canceled because of snow or we have to go down where there isn’t snow.”

The new surface at War Memorial Field can take a bit of snow or rain and keep on tickin’. For Sandpoint, seeing the outdoors this soon isn’t an advantage, it just puts them on par with every other team around the state.

“It always seemed like we were the last team to get out,” Tigert said. “It’s going to be nice that our kids are not at a disadvantage. We’re back on a level playing field.”

Most of the Bulldogs aren’t used to playing baseball on turf, so it will take some time to adjust to the new environment. Tigert said it’s a unique field, but the best part about it is not having to worry about home games being canceled the night before due to Mother Nature.

“This is a beautiful field, but it’s going to play completely different than any other field we’ve been on,” he said. “It’s going to play to our advantage because we’ll have a little better idea of how things are going to play.”

Despite the seven seniors Sandpoint has at its disposal, the team still has a bit of youth that will be key to their success this spring.

“There are a couple younger guys that are going to be big players in the program in the years coming,” Tigert said.

Sophomores Colin Roos and Cody Newhart and junior Auggie Lehman are all expected to have pivotal roles this spring. Tigert is expecting Newhart to see time in right field and Roos at first base, and all three can step on the mound and pitch.

Speaking of pitching, that’s the talk of the team. The Bulldogs have a loaded staff

“We have one of the best pitching staffs I have played with in my entire life,” Thielbahr said.

Half the varsity team can pitch at a high level, Thielbahr said, which gives Sandpoint a lot of versatility on the mound. Some guys can go the distance, some can come in as relief pitchers and some can give a stretch of three to four batters quite the battle.

“It’s a good problem to have,” Tigert said. “We have some arms this year.”

Tigert is looking for Roos to be a consistent starter for the Bulldogs as well as Butler once he is ready. He said Bocksch, Newhart and Williams could start from time to time also, and Thielbahr, a lefty, will be a valuable reliever.

The options seem endless for Sandpoint and Tigert said it’s going to be exciting to watch his guys dominate on the bump this season.

“They’ve been working hard for the last two years and it’s going to be really cool to see them take it to the field,” he said.

Having such a deep pitching staff will be handy in close games, Tigert said.

“Pitching wins games and that’s especially true at the high school level,” he said. “We have guys that can throw strikes and attack the zone and just go right after hitters.”

Bocksch has been playing baseball since second grade and he loves everything about it, especially hanging out with his teammates in the dugout.

Bocksch was an all-league third baseman in 2019, but this year he is moving to shortstop. At his new position, the senior plans on helping out the pitcher on the mound as much as possible by making the routine defensive plays look easy.

“I want to be the best shortstop I can be,” he said.

Offensively, Bocksch is hoping to hit over .350 and he wants to enjoy this spring because it could be his last season of baseball. Bocksch hasn’t ruled out playing collegiately and would consider a walk-on offer, but having the 2020 season canceled made it extremely difficult to get noticed.

“It was tough to miss the junior year because that’s when a lot of scouts come out and look at you,” he said.

Thielbahr is slated to start at centerfield for the Bulldogs after recording a .400 batting average and a .580 on-base percentage as a sophomore. That season, he hit leadoff for SHS and he'd be happy to have that role again this spring.

“If I get to, I love it,” he said about leading off. “I like to just kind of set the mood for the game.”

Tigert said Thielbahr and Bocksch will be crucial for the Bulldogs this season on and off the field. Both players have a strong work ethic and Tigert hopes that commitment rubs off on the rest of the team before their careers come to a close.

“They are going to be guys we can count on in any situation,” Tigert said.

With the 4A and 5A Inland Empire Leagues combining, the Bulldogs are in store for a tough schedule. But everyone on the team is looking forward to the challenge.

“I think that the 5A schools that we’re going to face this year are going to be really good,” Tigert said, “and it’s going to be a great experience for our guys because that’s going to be the level of competition that we’re going to face when we go to state.”

Reaching the state tournament is always the goal, but for a long time that aspiration was out of reach for the Sandpoint program. In Tigert’s second year at the helm in 2018, the Bulldogs ended a state drought that lasted over a decade and two years ago they were two runs away from making back-to-back trips to the big dance.

The Bulldogs first and only state title came back in 2006 and Thielbahr said this team has the potential to add another to the trophy case.

“I just want this team to make a really deep state run this year,” he said. “We definitely have the guys and the tools we need to do that.”

The Sandpoint baseball team will play its first game on the new artificial turf at War Memorial Field at noon Saturday against Lake City.