Alum Seitz gets his chance to run the Hamilton Southeastern Royals program

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

Kory Seitz has some points of emphasis as the new head baseball coach at Hamilton Southeastern High School in Fishers, Ind.
“Out of the gate we’ve got to get stronger and have a little more grit,” says Seitz. “We are going to live in the weight room.
“I’m going to be a little less baseball and a little more that.”
Seitz, a 1996 HSE graduate who has been on the Royals coaching staff the last 18 years under four head coaches (Curry Harden, Scott Johnson, Scott Henson and Jeremy Sassanella), has witnessed a huge uptick in strikeouts by the program’s hitters in recent seasons and sees a solution.
“We’ve been overthinking things,” says Seitz. “It’s going to be different. They’re not going to be told they have to swing a certain way. The kids have to relax and be comfortable in their own skin.”
Seitz spent his entire pre-college career in the Hamilton Southeastern system. His father Ken Seitz was HSE head baseball coach for 25 years and is a member of the Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. The elder Seitz was also the school’s athletic director for 25 years and was IHSBCA State Clinic chairman for 15.
Kory, a former infielder who played for Bob Morgan at Indiana University, describes his father’s coaching style.
“My dad’s not a yeller,” says Kory. “He built relationships with kids. When he did get loud he got a lot better response. If you’re constantly on the negative side they’re going shut down.
“There’s a reason guys come back 30 years later at alumni night.”
Seitz uses a phrase from HSE head football coach Mike Kelly which also fits.
“You can’t make withdrawals without making deposits with kids,” says Seitz. “They know that you care about them.”
The Royals play and practice on Ken Seitz Field.
Since his retirement as head coach, Ken Seitz (who is married to Kathy with a daughter, Kristy) has served several years as an assistant and is on Kory’s varsity staff along with pitching coach Owen Callaghan (HSE Class of 2017), who just finished his fifth year at Indiana University-Kokomo and was the Cougars’ Friday starter in 2022.
“He is mature beyond his years on the baseball side,” says Seitz of Callaghan, who follows Harden as the man in charge of Royals pitchers
There is one opening at the varsity level.
HSE fields two junior varsity teams — Royal and White. Coaches include Ken Shepherd, Mason Love, John Gibbons and Brian Harrison.
Hamilton Southeastern (enrollment around 3,475) is a member of the Hoosier Crossroads Conference (with Avon, Brownsburg, Franklin Central, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield and Zionsville).
HCC teams play two-game series.
“I love the competition,” says Seitz of the conference. “Playing against the best puts you in the best come tournament time.”
The Royals were part of an IHSAA Class 4A sectional grouping in 2022 with Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield and Zionsville. HSE has won 15 sectional titles — the last in 2019. The team went on to win a 4A state championship, edging Columbus East 3-2 in the finale with a run in the bottom of the seventh inning.
Eight of the 12 players to appear in that game were seniors, including starter pitcher Michael Dillon and reliever Tyler Schweitzer.
Right-hander Dillon ranked No. 2 among all NCAA Division II pitchers in saves with 14 for Nova Southeastern University (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) in 2022. Lefty Schweitzer went 11-2 at Ball State and was selected in the fifth round of the 2022 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft by the Chicago White Sox.
Among other recent alums to move on to college baseball are Matt Gorski (Class of 2016) at Indiana University (drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2019), Carter Poiry (Class of 2016) at Western Illinois (later Lincoln Trail College, Morehead State University and Quinnipiac University), Sam Bachman (Class of 2018) to Miami (Ohio) University (drafted in the first round in 2021 by the Los Angeles Angels), Carter Lohman (Class of 2018) at the University of Louisville (drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2022), Andrew Morlen (Class of 2018) at Anderson University, Lake Land College and Delta State University, Rutger Poiry (Class of 2018) at Lincoln Trail College and Eastern Kentucky University, Greyson Droste (Class of 2019) at the University of Akron, Cole Graverson (Class of 2020) at Butler University and Griffin Lohman (Class of 2020) at Purdue University.
There are no college commitments yet among current players.
Seitz looks at a number of returning pitchers who logged innings for HSE in 2022, including the Class of 2023’s Brady Strawmyer, Eli Lantz, Griffen Haas and Ty Bradle and the Class of 2024’s Ethan Lund. Lund and Haas are left-handers. The rest of right-handers.
“Growing up in this program and working under different coaches,” says Seitz. “I know a lot of these kids really well.
“I know what we have coming.”
Started three years ago, the Royals Baseball Club serves as kind of feeder for HSE. It is run as a separate entity from the school. Beginning at 13, teams play a full travel ball schedule from March to July.
Kory’s oldest son, Kam Seitz (Class of 2024), played for the 16U RBC Select team this summer.
“In our district kids have a choice of which high school they want to go to — HSE or Fishers,” says Seitz. “(With the RBC), we get get to know who are kids are. Our whole coaching staff involved in their winter workouts and are in-charge of teams if possible.
“We don’t have junior high baseball here. This is our way of connecting with those kids and building a relationship with them.”
Besides being a coach, Seitz is a realtor/broker for Keller Williams Realty.
“It’s easy for me to want to promote this area,” says Seitz.
Kory and wife Heather also have twins in the Class of 2027 — Karson (baseball) and Haleigh (softball).

Kory Seitz (Hamilton Southeastern High School Photo)

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Hamilton Southeastern grad Lang making impact for Purdue Fort Wayne

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

The middle of the Purdue Fort Wayne baseball infield has formed a big 1-2 punch at the top of the Mastodons batting order.

Senior Jack Lang, a 2017 graduate of Hamilton Southeastern High School in Fishers, Ind., is PFW’s primary shortstop and leadoff hitter. Batting second and playing second base is junior and Waterford (Wis.) Union High School product Aaron Chapman. 

In 2021, the pair flipped their offensive roles from 2020 when Chapman was lead-off on Mastodons head coach Doug Schreiber’s lineup card.

Heading into a four-game Horizon League series at Wright State April 9-11, the righty-swinging Lang is hitting .345 (29-of-84) with one triple, three doubles, 12 runs batted in, 13 runs scored and a .409 on-base percentage. He is 11-of-14 in stolen bases.

After leading the Summit League in hitting during the COVID-19 pandemic-shorted 2020 season at .382, Chapman is hitting .256 with two homers, one triple, two doubles, 15 RBIs, 13 runs, a .385 OBP and is 5-of-5 in stolen bases. Coming off a hand injury, Chapman went 8-of-18 last weekend against Northern Kentucky.

Purdue Fort Wayne hit .299 as a team in 2020, ranking them 30th in the country. The ’21 Dons (9-14 overall, 6-10 in the Horizon League) are at .256.

“The numbers don’t reflect it, but we’re starting to make a little push with our offensive game,” says Lang. “Our pitching has improved phenomenally since last year.”

Lang, who hit .205 in 2018 and .206 in 2019 then .290 in 2020, credits Greg Vogt-led PRP (Passion Resilience Process) Baseball in Noblesville, Ind., and the help of hitting instructor Quentin Brown.

“He helped me turn my swing around,” says Lang of Brown, who played for the school when it was known as Indiana Purdue Fort Wayne (IPFW).

The College Summer League at Grand Park’s Snapping Turtles featured Lang in 2020.

Lang, who was born in Carmel, Ind., and grew up in Fishers, was primarily a middle infielder in travel ball (with the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Raiders, Indiana Mustangs and Indiana Havoc) and high school. Two OLMC teammates — Carmel High grads Max Habegger (Lipscomb University) and Cameron Pferrer (University of Missouri) — are now pitching at the NCAA D-I level. Several Indiana Havoc mates are also playing college baseball.

With a little time in center field as a sophomore, Lang was mainly second baseman early in his college days with Fishers graduate Brandon Yoho starting at short through 2019. 

The past two springs, Lang has been PFW’s regular shortstop while getting guidance from Schreiber, who was head coach at Purdue University for 18 years before spending two seasons at McCutcheon High School — both in West Lafayette, Ind. — and taking over in Purdue in the fall of 2019.

“He has done a phenomenal job of turning this program around into something successful,” says Lang of Schreiber. “He has Old School method of how infielders are supposed to train.

“He tries to bring out the best player in you.”

Lang knew that Schreiber was a fiery competitor through friends who were recruited by Schreiber at Purdue.

Playing for passionate coaches growing up — including former HSE head coach and current Indiana University-Kokomo volunteer Scott Henson — Lang is drawn to that style.

“He has a fiery edge,” says Lang, a three-year varsity player for the Royals. “He was not afraid to get on somebody, but it was all out of love.

“It was the edge to help me succeed in the best way possible.”

Lang also got to be coached at Hamilton Southeastern by Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Famer Ken Seitz (who led the Royals program for 25 years and came back to help after his retirement) and his son Kory Seitz and stays in-touch with both of them.

“The HSE program is what it is today because of the Seitz family,” says Lang.

While it came two years after his graduation, Lang was a Victory Field in Indianapolis when HSE won the 2019 IHSAA Class 4A state championship.

“We have a great tradition that seniors get to take their home white jerseys (after their senior season),” says Lang, who was donning his old No. 5 and rooting with three former teammates when the Royals edged Columbus East 3-2. “We were probably the loudest in the stadium.”

Current head coach Jeremy Sassanella, who had led the program at Brebeuf Jesuit, has connected with HSE alumni and that includes Lang.

The former Royals middle infielder has also developed a bond with Matt Cherry, who coached rival Fishers to the 4A state crown in 2018.

There was a transition going on when Lang entered college with Indiana Purdue Fort Wayne going by Fort Wayne for a time and then Purdue Fort Wayne.

The Mastodons head baseball coach his first two years was Bobby Pierce.

“Bobby was a great guy,” says Lang. “He came to a lot of my travel ball games and I never knew why. He loved my hustle. 

“He saw the good attitude in me and that I had a potential to be a good player for his program.”

At PFW, Lang has gotten to play with many players he played with or against as a younger athlete. He was roommates with HSE graduate Grant Johnston and Fishers alum Cameron Boyd.

Lang, 22, is on pace to graduate in May as a Business Management major with a Professional Sales Certificate.

“I eventually want to go into sales,” says Lang. “But I want to play as long as I can.”

Granted another year of eligibility because of COVID-19, Lang plans to return for 2021-22 while being work on his Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree in the fall.

Jack is the oldest of Jeff and Dawn Long’s three children. Nicole Lang (20) plays softball and studies engineering at Rose-Hulman Institutute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind. Christian Lang (9) is a baseball-playing third grader.

“Family dad” Doug Pope — father of Justin Pope — has thrown many hours of batting practice to Jack Lang over the years.

Jack Lang (Purdue Fort Wayne Photo)

Campbell, Lapel Bulldogs meeting baseball challenges head-on

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Baseball teams at Lapel High School are faced with unique challenges.

At 470 students, the school is slightly smaller than its corporation partner, Frankton, and one of the smaller ones in the Madison Country area.

Yet, the 2018 schedule for IHSAA Class 2A Lapel features 4A schools like Anderson and Lawrence North and perennial 3A powers like Indianapolis Cardinal Ritter and Western plus plenty of talented 2A and 1A programs.

“There are definitely challenges,” says Matt Campbell, who enters his second season as Lapel’s head baseball coach in 2018. “It’s not in the size or the athletes that come out of it. Location is a very interesting factor. There are not a lot a lot of schools in close proximity of the same size. We end up playing a lot bigger schools.

“It’s fun to go up against them and have success on different levels every night. I just want to play good baseball schools and play them well.”

In 2017, Lapel hosted a sectional with Frankton, Monroe Central, Muncie Burris, Shenandoah and Wapahani. The Bulldogs won sectionals in 1976, 1983, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2013 and 2015. Lapel’s lone regional title came in 2006.

Lapel is also an independent, having left the Indiana Crossroads Conference in 2014-15.

Where the disadvantage comes in is with scheduling. Lapel is often the first team to get dropped when conference teams need to make up games.

“In high school sports, there’s nothing better than having rivalries,” says Campbell. “It’s always better to be playing for something. That’s the same way it is with all sports at Lapel.

“Frankton is our rival (in Frankton-Lapel Community Schools). We may not circle it on the calendar, but everybody knows when that game is going to be played.”

The whole community is mourning the loss of Frankton baseball and basketball assistant Chris Hatzell, who died Dec. 26 at age 44.

“He was a great guy,” says Campbell of Hatzell, the Eagles’ first base coach. “He will be missed.”

Campbell enters his second season as Lapel head baseball coach in 2018. He is the eighth man to lead the program in 11 years. The Class of 2017 had four different coaches in four years.

The baseball field at Lapel went in with the new school building a decade ago, but improvement or maintenance projects have slowed with the coaching turnover. Campbell did participate in a recent irrigation upgrade.

Among those moving on were Brad Lantz, Dustin Glant and Matt Bair.

Lantz, a Lapel graduate, went on to become head coach at Guerin Catholic High School and is now an assistant at Noblesville.

Glant became head coach at Anderson University and is now entering his sixth season as an assistant at Ball State University.

Bair is entering his first season as head coach at Anderson U.

Campbell came to Lapel after serving as an assistant at Pendleton Heights — first to Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Famer Bill Stoudt and then current Arabians head coach Travis Keesling.

“He is the epitome of baseball,” says Campbell of Stoudt. “I talk to him weekly if not more. I can’t get enough of him. There’s a reason he was so successful. He just loves being around the game. When I got this job, I think he was as excited about the game as I was. I gave him one more connection to the game.”

Stoudt was a regular spectator in 2017 at Lapel games.

Campbell played at Hamilton Southeastern High School, graduating in 2001 — the last season as Royals head coach for IHSBCA Hall of Famer Ken Seitz.

“He has a ton of wisdom to give,” says Campbell of Seitz. “One of those things was — don’t stray, keep to the path. He saw the end in sight that we — as 17- and 18-year-olds — didn’t see.

“That’s something that’s stuck with me for a long time. Especially at this time of year. The season seems so far off. Pitchers and catchers meet at 6 a.m. After school, we finally get access to the gym (after winter sports teams). There’s the time in the weight room. But to us coaches, it seems like it’s just around the corner.

“It’s the dawning of a New Year.”

Campbell has also been coaching with the Indiana Bulls organization since 2006. He began as an assistant to Larry Fowler and took over the 18U squad in 2009 and a few years later joined the board of directors.

Fowler is now an assistant to Campbell at Lapel. His other assistants for 2018 include Ryan Scott, Jim Cook, Cameron Mendel, Hunter Cook, Sam Wides and Cade Luker. Scott, Mendel and Luker are all Lapel graduate. Jim Cook coached at Pendleton Heights and his son, Hunter Cook, played there.

Lapel is currently represented in college baseball by Brady Cherry (Ohio State University) and Jaxon Shirley (Weatherford College in Texas).

Left-hander Devon Frank (Lapel Class of 2018) has verbally committed to Anderson U. Other Bulldogs are considering college options.

Campbell graduated from Indiana University (where he did not play baseball), taught 10 years in Pendleton schools and is now teaching seventh grade at Lapel Middle School. Matt and Christene Campbell have two children — Easton (4) and Teaghan (3 months).

Matt Campbell, a Hamilton Southeastern High School graduate, is heading into his second season as head baseball coach at Lapel High School in Madison County in 2018. (Brian Gill Photo)

 

HSE, Henson looking to play the best to prepare for the postseason

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Take a look at the 2017 Hamilton Southeastern High School baseball schedule.

With 18 games in the always ultra-competitive Hoosier Crossroads Conference (three-game series vs. Avon, Brownsburg, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield and Zionsville), non-conference games against perennial powers like Brebeuf, Carmel and Roncalli and out-of-state encounters against Louisville (Ky.) Ballard, Louisville (Ky.) Trinity and Metamora Township (Ill.), there are no breathers for the Royals.

And that’s the way fifth-year head coach Scott Henson and the HSE diamond community want it. A stacked regular season can only help come postseason.

“(Our players) truly believe they’re more prepared for the sectional than any other team in the state,” says Henson. “You have to be prepared or else you’re going to be taking an early exit.”

As is Henson’s habit, he is taking his Fishers-based team for an early-season test when the Royals play April 6-8 in the Super Prep Series in the Louisville area (HSE was there two years ago and was rained out at Cincinnati Moeller in 2016 when both teams were atop their respective state polls).

Ballard features All-American outfielder/right-hander pitcher Jordon Adell who may be drafted this spring before ever stepping on the field for the University of Louisville. HSE junior left-hander Carter Lohman has committed to U of L.

“This gives us a measuring stick early in the season,” says Henson. “We also get to stay in a hotel and have some team bonding.”

Henson says he wishes the IHSAA would back off its travel rules which limit teams from going more than 300 miles from the border or playing any teams outside that radius.

“We’ve talked to the Louisville organizers,” says Henson. “We can’t play certain teams.”

This spring will mark the third season of a conference format that more closely reflects a college-like schedule and many HSE players do have aspirations of playing college baseball.

“That three-game series is pushing us to the next level,” says Henson, noting that the HCC has been represented in the Class 4A IHSAA State Finals two of the last three seasons (Noblesville winning in 2014 and Zionsville finishing as runner-up in 2016). “We think we’re the best baseball conference in the state.”

While they want to beat each other between the lines, the coaches in the HCC are also friendly and are known to get together for gatherings or seek each other out at clinics.

Henson says the three-game series forces teams to develop pitching (there were 17 NCAA Division I pitchers in the conference in 2016) and really think about strategy.

“You’re getting a better sense who is the best overall team,” says Henson. “That’s the nature of baseball. You’ve got to do it more than just one night. That’s why the World Series is seven games. They want to see who the best team is over time.”

Entering his 15th season as a high school baseball coach, Henson spent two seasons as head JV coach at HSE before taking over the top spot. Before that, he was the hitting coach for four years at Northern Nash High School in Rocky Mount, N.C., after leaving coaching and going into the business world.

Henson was an assistant for four seasons (1995-98) at his alma mater, Pendleton Heights, where he worked for Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Famer Bill Stoudt.

“Coach Stoudt had a pretty big influence on my life,” says Henson, who played baseball and football for the man at Pendleton and graduated in 1991 before going on to play college baseball at the University of Indianapolis and IUPUI and one season of pro ball with the independent Frontier League’s Richmond Roosters. “It seems he was always in my ear.”

Henson just went through cuts at HSE and usually gets a call every year from Stoudt telling him how this time of the year is both the greatest and the worst.

“I’ve got to tell these kids they don’t get to come and play ball anymore,” says Henson. “It’s tough sometimes.”

At a school of 3,200 students, Henson had 97 try out for 50 spots his first season. Since then, he’s had to cut 25 to 30 players each spring.

“I start preparing the guys for this back in October or November,” says Henson. “I tell them, I’d like to keep all of you. You have a passion for the game.’”

The reality is there are only so many spots.

Henson has seen some players cut once or twice and come back and make the squad.

Through it all, there’s a lesson.

“You are going to go through life with things that are tough,” says Henson. “If you get knocked down, you’ve got to get back up and make the best of situations. You rely on your teammates and buddies to put you in a good spot.”

The emphasis at HSE is daily improvement. A coaching staff that includes Kory Seitz, Ken Seitz, Curry Harden, Jeff Mendenhall, Tyler Underwood, Seth Story, Jake Straub, Seth Paladin and Matt Nash reinforces that mantra with varsity, junior varsity and freshmen squads.

“We want to get better everyday,” says Henson. “Work to be your best when you need to be your best.”

The Royals have won 14 sectionals and all of them are represented on the current staff. In their tenures as HSE head coach, IHSBCA Hall of Famer Ken Seitz claimed nine sectionals, Harden took three and Henson has two (2013, 2015).

Henson has a few other ideas about how to make Indiana high school baseball better.

“I’d love to see us have access to the kids a little more,” says Henson. “Right now, there are periods when we can only work with two kids at a time per coach. There’s a reason travel baseball is becoming more and more important. (Those coaches) have unlimited access.

“I understand the idea behind the rule, but it’s antiquated. We’re missing opportunities.

Henson says the experience could be a little bit better.

“Seeding the tournament would go a long ways,” says Henson. “And we get too caught up in making things geographically feasible.”

If getting the best competition means traveling a few hours, so be it. That’s what it was like in North Carolina, where they do not have an all-comers postseason like Indiana and play a best-of-three championship series.

It’s all about making baseball better.

Scott Henson is entering his fifth season as head baseball coach at Hamilton Southeastern High School in 2017.