Nunley now head coach at Guerin Catholic

By STEVE KRAH
http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Keith Nunley returns to a high school head coaching post with his hiring last summer at Guerin Catholic in Noblesville, Ind.
“I got a call from (Eagles director of athletics Ryan Davis),” says Nunley. “We went to breakfast. Right from the beginning I could tell he was a baseball guy.
“We want to build a championship culture and do it the right way.”
Guerin Catholic (enrollment around 720) is a member of the Circle City Conference (with Brebeuf Jesuit, Covenant Christian, Heritage Christian, Indianapolis Bishop Chatard and Roncalli).
“We’re a really good conference,” says Nunley. “Every team has a superstar on their mound or in their lineup.
“I’m looking forward to getting in the mix of it.”
In 2022, CCC teams will play Tuesday-Wednesday home-and-home series.
In 2021, the Eagles were part of an IHSAA Class 3A sectional grouping with Delta, Hamilton Heights, Jay County, New Castle and Yorktown. Guerin Catholic is seeking its first sectional title.
Nunley, who previously was head coach from 2016-20 at Monroe Central Junior-Senior High School in Parker City, Ind., was an assistant to Bulldogs head coach Matt Campbell this past season at Lapel (Ind.) Junior-Senior High School.
He coached in the Indiana Bulls travel organization the past two summers and in fall ball. While in Randolph County, Nunley and best friend and former Ball State University teammate Matt Deckman (who is now Monroe Central head coach) ran the traveling Indiana Bears.
Bryce Deckman, Matt’s son, is a freshman on the Huntington (Ind.) University baseball team.
An IHSAA Limited Contact Period went from Aug. 30-Oct. 16 and Nunley had 12 to 20 athletes participating two times a week while many other players were unavailable because of fall sports.
“It’s always good to have multi-sport athletes,” says Nunley. “They’re competing in other avenues working with other coaches. It’s a team of coaches – not just one guy.
“(Multi-sporters) are in the weight room or another sport and doing something with their bodies and not just sitting,” said Nunley.
The next limited contact period begins Dec. 6 and the ramping up of pitching arms will begin in earnest.
Matt Hession is dedicated to the job of tending the Eagles’ home diamond.
“Matt has done a fantastic job taking care of the field,” says Nunley.
The on-campus facility was recently laser-graded through the efforts of Hession and Blake Marschand of Marschand’s Athletic Field Services.
Nunley’s Guerin Catholic 2021-22 coaching staff includes John Becker, Cade Luker, John Magers, Lewis Diltz and volunteers Kolbe Smith and Justin Bloxom. Becker played and coached at Anderson (Ind.) University and also coached for the Indiana Bulls. Luker (who will lead the junior varsity team) and Magers (who will help with pitchers and float between varsity and JV squads) are Lapel graduates who played at Manchester University. Diltz was on the staff in 2021 and will help with the JV as weill Guerin Catholic alum Smith. Bloxom played at Kansas State University and played and scouted in the Washington Nationals organization.

Nunley, a Winchester Community High School graduate, is a territory owner and sales representative for Adrenaline Fundraising, a company which also employs Deckman and Brebeuf Jesuit head coach Jeff Scott.
Keith and wife Kate, an Exceptional Learners teacher at Fishers (Ind.) High School, have two baseball-playing sons – Guerin Catholic freshman A.J. and middle schooler Koby.

The Nunleys (from left): Koby, A.J., Keith and Kate.

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Spencer wants Sheridan Blackhawks to be ‘all-conference’ teammates

By STEVE KRAH
http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Adam Spencer has learned that if you want to make a leader you let someone take the lead.
If you went them to be a valuable part of the group you show them how.
Spencer, the head baseball coach at Sheridan (Ind.) High School since 2017, defines his role.
“I’m a developer of men,” says Spencer, who is also a sixth grade math teacher and activities director at Sheridan Middle School (he earned an Elementary Education degree from Ball State University in 1998 and about a decade later at Masters in Education from Indiana Wesleyan University). “Everybody wants to win. I want to help make good fathers, good husbands, good friends.
“We talk about being an all-conference teammate. These are things we don’t have stats on.”
Through the years of coaching youth sports, Spencer has gotten to the point where players are asked to take charge in certain areas.
“Early on I never gave anybody leadership roles,” says Spencer. “Our guys run our drills (supervised by coaches). We put our upperclassmen in leadership roles.”
The baseball team is also involved in community service.
“We try to help others if we can,” says Spencer, whose players have raked leaves, pulled weeds and even helped the Sheridan Historical Society move across Main Street (S.R. 38).
Spencer is a 1993 Sheridan graduate. He did not play baseball or basketball in high school though he as a big fan of the sport. His father passed away when Adam was in elementary school and he worked during the winter and spring.
He did play football at Sheridan for Hall of Famer Larry “Bud” Wright and was on an IHSAA state championship team in 1992.
His love of baseball led Spencer to the Indianapolis Umpire Association and he officiated games for 17 years.
As his children got older (Adam and wife of 21 years, Lindsay, have four sons), he got involved in coaching at the middle school level.
At Lebanon (Ind.) High School, Spencer was on the football staffs of Lance Scheib and Kent Wright.
Years later, Matt Britt gave him the chance to coach middle school baseball at Sheridan. Some of those players were on the 2019 Blackhawks team that went 14-6 and lost to eventual Carroll (Flora) Regional champion Rossville in the Class 1A Sheridan Sectional championship.
Spencer was pitching coach for Larry Lipker for a season before taking over as head coach.
Sheridan (enrollment around 330) is a member of the Hoosier Heartland Conference (with Carroll of Flora, Clinton Central, Clinton Prairie, Delphi, Eastern of Greentown, Rossville, Taylor and Tri-Central).
In 2022, HHC teams will play one another on Tuesdays and Thursdays with some Saturday doubleheaders. In 2013, there will be 11 conference games included a seeded end-of-season tournament.
In 2021, the Blackhawks were part of an IHSAA Class 1A sectional grouping with Clinton Central, Frontier (the 2021 host), Rossville, South Newton and Tri-County. Sheridan has won its lone sectional title in 2004.
Sheridan plays its home games on Kent Harris Field (named after a former Blackhawks baseball coach).
In the fall, Blake Marschand-owned Marschand’s Athletic Field Service laser-graded the diamond and there was no Limited Contact Period activity. Spencer says there might have been five athletes involved that don’t play football or another fall sport at Sheridan. Spencer also coaches middle school football.
Through a partnership formed between Spencer and Michael Tucker, Sheridan hosts some Bullpen Tournaments games and has access to the turf diamonds at Grand Park in nearby Westfield, Ind.
Spencer’s assistant baseball coaches are Sheridan alum Adam Durr and Ryan Conley, whom he met from IUA.
Sam Crail (Class of 2017) played at Indiana University and then went to Saint Leo (Fla.) University.
Zach Mannies (Class of 2018) played at Ancilla College and then West Liberty (W.Va.) University.
Cameron Hovey (Class of 2021) is on the baseball and football teams at Manchester University.
Spencer sees college baseball potential in current seniors Gavin Reners and Silas DeVaney if they should pursue that path.
“(Reners and DeVaney) will be the leaders of our team (in 2022),” says Spencer.
Caine Spencer played for his father at the end of his middle school and high school baseball days and is now a 21-year-old junior at Ball State.
Adam and Lindsay’s other three boys — sophomore Camden (16), eighth grader Chance (14) and fifth grader Crew (11) – are also baseball players.
Feeders for Sheridan High School baseball are a Sheridan Babe Ruth League team of seventh and eighth graders that play in the late spring and into the summer plus young players in Sheridan Community Recreation Inc. (SCRI).
A middle school baseball camp introduces players to the ways and the language used at Sheridan High School.
“I’m invested in the program at every level,” says Spencer.

Adam Durr (left) and Adam Spencer.

Adam Spencer, Cole Macintosh and Camden Spencer.

Adam Spencer and Sheridan, Ind., youth baseball players.

Adam Spencer.

Shirley Delph (stripes) with the Spencers (clockwise) — Lindsay, Caine, Adam, Chance, Chase and Crew,

The Spencers (from left): Chance, Adam, Caine, Camden, Crew and Lindsay.

Adam Spencer surrounded by sons Caine and Chance, Camden and Crew.

Lewis Cass graduate Marschand makes, maintains fields of all kinds

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

As soon as Blake Marschand could put one foot in front of the other, he was stepping on a baseball field.

From a young age, Blake was helping his father groom diamonds and other facilities.

Greg Marschand, a 2017 Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame inductee, has spent countless hours on fields at Lewis Cass High School in Walton, Ind., where he is still head baseball coach and athletic director.

“My dad got this etched in me,” says Blake Marschand, who played football, basketball and baseball for the Cass Kings and graduated in 1998. “This is all I knew. There was no sleeping in on the weekends when I was a little kid.

“Sports have always been a big thing to the Marschand family.”

Over the years, Blake saw his father’s work ethic and heard him talk about having a company that builds and maintains these places to play ball.

A right-handed pitcher, Blake played baseball for two years at Chattahoochee Valley Community College in Phenix City, Ala., and two at Hawaii Pacific University in Honolulu and retuned to Howard County, Indiana.

He purchased some equipment from former Northwestern High School baseball coach Dan Armstrong and launched Marschand’s Athletic Field Service in 2008.

MAFS works on baseball, softball, football and soccer fields.

On the natural side of things, it’s construction (laser grading, adding DuraEdge infield mix, building mounds and bullpens, complete tear-offs, re-grades, re-builds and more) and maintenance (aerification, fertilization, overseeding, top dressing, deep-tine aerification, edging etc.).

As a regional representative, Marschand applies DuraEdge-engineered infield mix. The product is used on many Major League Baseball fields and throughout the nation. There are three main varieties — Classic, Collegiate and Pro. Each mix is engineered to certain percentages of clay, sand and silt.

Marschand and his crew also perform maintenance on artificial-surface fields throughout the Midwest for Sprinturf.

“I’m not totally against synthetic (turf),” says Marschand. “It’s got it’s place.”

Marschand notes that some schools may not have had their fields built the right or does not have the right equipment or knowledge to maintain those fields correctly.

“If the fields are built using the correct products and materials, it makes maintenance a lot easier,” says Marschand. “Basketball courts get budgeted to be re-surfaced every year, but outside fields often get put on the back burner.

“Outdoor fields being laser-graded every two or three years would be similar to having a basketball court re-surfaced.”

It’s all about maintaining a facility. It cuts down on that big project.

MAFS has been to fields all over Indiana and continues to pick up new business.

For 13 years, Marschand has held the contract at CFD Investments Highland Park Stadium in Kokomo, Ind., doing daily game preparation, clean-up and more.

“We thrive on building and developing that honest relationship with customers,” says Marschand. “We’re not a huge business. I just try to keep it to a small core group of (four to five workers). That way we can be efficient.”

Marschand says that the initial important step in field construction or maintenance is using the correct products such as DuraEdge infield mix and setting the correct grade.

“Looking into the future, that’s just going to help in maintaining the field,” says Marschand. “On a renovation project, it sometimes can be tricky because we have to match the existing grade of the way the field was laid out.

“We’re trying to determine what percentage of grade that is to give them that efficient surface run-off, which is what you want.

“On the DuraEdge side, we shoot for a two-inch cap,” says Marschand. “That will give you a really nice, quality skin surface.”

Marschand says the best time to do field renovation work is in the summer and fall because the weather tends to be nicer and teams are not on the field as often as they are in the spring.

Even though the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic has baseball — and other sports — canceled for the spring, MAFS has been busy working on fields.

But it’s not been a typical March and April.

“Usually springs are pretty stressful,” says Marschand. “Once you get those first sunny days, your phone’s ringing off the hook. Everybody wants you there that day. I get it. I’m not mad at them for that.

“The goal is to make your customers happy. You don’t want to keep them waiting.

“We’ve got all kinds of work in the books. I try to lay out my work on a first-come, first-served basis. When customers call I put them on a list and try to run down that list.”

There is not much grade work being done when it’s wet, but the crew can install mounds and perform other tasks.

“I also try to split it up so I’m not burning guys out on the same thing every day,” says Marschand. “That’s what’s so great about this work. It’s always something different. Every place is different and has its own needs.”

Marschand is appreciate of the relationships he has formed in the industry.

“Guys that are way more knowledgeable than me are always willing to talk and discuss whatever the situation might be,” says Marschand. “Having those relationships mean a lot to me and I’m very thankful.”

That includes staffers at DuraEdge, Joey Stevenson with the Indianapolis Indians, Jeremy Tredway at Indiana University and Brian Bornino at Purdue University.

Marschand typically looks for former athletes to work on his crew.

“They understand the work ethic and appreciate the big picture once they start seeing what goes on behind the scenes,” says Marschand.

This week’s schedule called for work on netting and padding on the dugouts at Kokomo Municipal Stadium, building mounds for Noblesville High School, finishing laser-grading at Carroll (Flora) High School, aeriating and later top-dressing at Kokomo High School soccer fields, spraying at Guerin Catholic High School, spraying at Western High School, top-dressing at Eastern High School and a number of things at Rochester High School.

Blake and Tara Marschand live in Kokomo with daughters Kinsley (11) and Bayah (7).

Marschand’s Athletic Field Service has long held the maintenance contract at CFD Investments Highland Park Stadium in Kokomo, Ind.

Marschand’s Athletic Field Service has laser-graded Andy Mohr Field, the softball facility at Indiana University.

Marschand’s Athletic Field Service has laser-graded Alexander Field, Purdue University’s baseball facility.

The Marschand family (from left): Tara, Bayah, Blake and Kinsley. The Marschands reside in Kokomo, Ind. Blake Marschand is the founder of Marschand’s Athletic Field Service.