DADEVILLE, Mo. — Brent Rountree barely needed two hands to count the boys at Dadeville who aren’t playing baseball.
“9 through 12, I’d say no more than seven.”
MSHAA puts the high school’s enrollment at 36 for 2016, making it one of the smallest Class 1 schools in the state. For some perspective, Kickapoo had 35 students sign to play college athletics this year.
But the Bearcats make no bones about their small stature being a badge of honor.
"Our motto is that everybody is larger than us. Every time we’re competing with bigger schools or winning, it’s a pretty big pride thing for us.”
That hasn’t stopped them from being a postseason headache, capturing three straight district championships and just shy of a trio of Final Four berths. It seems remarkable they haven’t dealt with a season like this current one more often.
Like Rountree’s softball club this fall, the Bearcats baseball team sports nine players.
Three freshmen: Will Toler, Matthew Huchteman, and Riley Murphy.
Two sophomores: Skylor Horton and Marcus Keathley.
Two juniors: Jarrett Sappington and Wyatt Sneed.
Two seniors: Zeb Medley and Dustin Brown.
The Medley name is well known around town. Zeb’s two older brothers, Zach and Zane, did their damage on the diamond and the basketball court, racking up the postseason wins along the way.
Now, the youngest sibling is experiencing the opposite extreme.
“He knew going in that it’d be a rebuilding year, but he’s approached it with a great attitude. He’s been a part of success in the past few years.”
As one of the only upperclassmen, Medley understand the part he plays in something as simple as motivation, something that daily conversations with his brothers help.
"There's no stud out there that's going to fill a spot when you absolutely need one,” he said. "We've seen how success feels and we want to keep it going. Everybody just puts in the time and effort and we get something out of it."
So go the cycles in Class 1. Really, any school, large or small, is at the mercy of a specific class’ athleticism. Right now, Dadeville (6-15) is at the mercy of the numbers game and doesn’t have the luxury to let anything halt the season’s motions.
"Unless it's a big injury, you just have to play through it,” Sappington said. "If somebody'sick you have to just get over it because if you don't come to school, we don't have a game.”
One injury occurred in the season’s first week when Huchteman, an outfielder, broke his finger.
“He wasn’t able to swing, but he was cleared enough to where he could stand and take pitches and not be an automatic out,” Rountree said.
As the smallest player on the team, he has drawn some walks, too.
That’s one example of how Dadeville made the most of their situation. They’ve somehow amassed a pitching rotation of three to four able-bodied hurlers out of nine kids while missing just one game due to numbers.
“That’s what Coach Rountree does,” Sappington said. “He put guys in good situations.”
It’s a change of pace for the Bolivar native who’s spent a decade at Dadeville, but time has, like most of us, made him wise.
"The first few years, you’re pretty Gung-ho and you’re going to make whatever you got work. As you go through a rebuild, maybe it’s age, but you’re more patient,” Rountree said. "Winning is definitely not everything as long as the kids are improving from where you start to the finish."
"You definitely see the contrast to how spoiled you can get when you have returners that already know what you want to do before you even ask them."
They haven’t been afraid to double the workload either, flipping their lineup to play every junior varsity game. Just getting the extra at-bats should pay dividends in the future.
"There'll be seasons that come around when they're upperclassmen where there'll be success for them again,” Sappington said.
And that, if anything, will look more familiar.
