Miller-led Knightstown Panthers win first sectional since 2016

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Robbie Miller experienced postseason as a head baseball coach at Greenfield (Ind.)-Central High School, helping the Cougars to an IHSAA Class 4A sectional title in 2017.

Miller, who led the GC program from 2015-18 and then assisted at New Palestine for the 2019, was hired at Knightstown (Ind.) Community High School for the 2020 campaign, which was taken away by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Knightstown won the 2021 Class 2A Heritage Christian Sectional crown, beating Triton Central 9-6 and Heritage Christian 7-4 for the right to play Saturday, June 5 in the Cascade Regional. The 17-12-1 Panthers meet Parke Heritage (15-10) in the second semifinal. The first game at 11 a.m. features University (21-9) against Centerville (23-5). 

Miller has his team focused inward.

“I don’t care who’s in the other dugout,” says Miller. “I worry about us. If we do the things we’re capable of doing, we’ll be successful.

“Just be us and we’ll be fine.”

The Knightstown-Triton Central sectional game featured former Franklin (Ind.) College teammates as head coaches — Miller with his Panthers and Justin Bergman with his Tigers.

Miller called on senior workhorse Mason Muncy to take the mound against Triton Central.

“He threw a great game and he got big hits throughout the lineup,” says Miller of the comeback win. “We scored three in the first and gave up five in the top of the second.

“But the kids never quit.”

Muncy was able to pitch again in the Heritage Christian game. The Panthers faced sophomore Andrew Wiggins (an Indiana University commit) and were down 1-0. 

Senior Ben Newby hit a two-run home run and senior 8-hole hitter Robert Porter produced two clutch hits for Knightstown.

Then there was senior Aaron Reagan.

“He might be one of the best baserunners I’ve ever coach,” says Miller of Reagan. “He ade a great slide that put us ahead 6-3 in the sixth. We executed a suicide squeeze on the next pitch (for a 7-3 lead).”

The Panthers fields a team with experienced seniors and a mixture of freshmen and sophomores. Junior Carson Smith is the starting shortstop.

Knightstown (enrollment around 360) is a member of the Tri-Eastern Conference (with Cambridge City Lincoln, Centerville, Hagerstown, Northeastern, Tri, Union City, Union County and Winchester).

TEC teams play each other one time in 2021 as it worked into their schedules. 

With the most-recent title, Knightstown has won seven sectionals. Three of those came back-to-back-to-back (2014, 2015 and 2016). The Panthers were regional victors in 2015 and 2016, losing to eventual state champion Providence in the Plainfield Semistate.

Miller, who resides in Greenfield with wife Allison and daughters Ella and Abbi and works for Anthem, enjoyed his time as a volunteer coach at New Palestine (he is a 1997 graduate) with Dragons head coach Shawn Lyons.

“I learned a lot from him,” says Miller. “I had been coaching against him for like 15 years.

“New Pal’s a great program. (Lyons) does things the right way. He wants to win as much as anybody and he prepares better than any coach I’ve ever been around. His other assistants are phenomenal. They made me feel wanted from Day 1.”

Miller wasn’t looking for another coaching gig when he was told about the opening at Knightstown. A basketball official in the winter, he happened to be going to Knightstown a few weeks after learning about the opportunity. He was hired in January 2020 by Panthers athletic director Matt Martin.

When the season was taken away and workouts were then allowed in July, Miller took the opportunity and had 10 or more at each session while sharing athletes with football and basketball.

“I was still trying to get to know the kids when they said baseball was done (in March),” says Miller. “The good news is a lot them played travel ball and I tried to see as many games as possible.”

Miller’s assistant coaches are John Walters, Nic Murray and Jim Kayajan.

Knightstown had 20 players in uniform this spring. The junior varsity schedule was clipped because of COVID contact tracing.

The Panthers play on a field that’s part of a complex that’s just a few years old.

“It’s a really nice facility,” says Miller.

High school baseball is fed by Knightstown Youth Sports and a middle school program. Those Knightstown Intermediate School students use the old varsity diamond.

Knightstown (Ind.) Community High School head baseball coach Robbie Miller with his wife Allison and daughters Ella and Abbi and the 2021 IHSAA Class 2A Heritage Christian Sectional trophy.

Allison and Robbie Miller with the 2021 IHSAA Class 2A Heritage Christian Sectional trophy won by Robbie’s Knightstown team.

The Miller home team: Robbie, Allison and daughters Ella and Abbi.

Knightstown won the 2021 IHSAA Heritage Christian Sectional baseball title. It was the first sectional crown for the Panthers program since 2016.

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Ball State’s Jameson turning heads, dodging bats

BY STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Competitor.

Electric.

Ball State University head baseball coach Rich Maloney uses these two words to describe right-handed power pitcher Drey Jameson.

“I think that probably his whole life people underestimated him,” says Maloney of the 6-foot, 165-pound Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft-eligible sophomore. “But he never underestimated himself.

“He’s been a motivator on his own. He’s been a fighter. That’s what he does when he gets between those lines — he fights. Everybody in the country would want him to be their pitcher.”

Jameson really went on the national radar when he stymied Stanford in the 2019 season opener Feb. 15 in Tempe, Ariz., and earned Mid-American Conference Pitcher of the Week honors.

“He was dominating,” says Maloney of the righty who hurled six no-hit innings against the nationally-ranked Cardinal with nine strikeouts and two walks.

Maloney is enjoying the Jameson experience at Ball State because he does not expect it to last past this season.

“We’re not going to have him,” says Maloney. “He’s going to go pretty high in the draft. Everybody in the country knows that. It’s great. That’s what you want. You want him to realize his dream and have a chance to play in the big leagues.

“He’s special. He has moxie. He has confidence.”

The 21-year-old Jameson just doesn’t believe in holding back and wants always be the aggressor.

“I’m very competitive,” says Jameson. “I never want to take a pitch off.”

Jameson graduated from Greenfield (Ind.)-Central High School and came to the Cards as a two-way player (he has since left the outfield to concentrate on pitching).

Where does he think he’s improved most since his high school days?

“I’ve become a true pitcher,” says Jameson. “In high school, you could have considered me as a thrower. Last year, you could have considered me a thrower.

“Since I’ve become a pitcher-only, I’ve really improved my game. That comes with time on the mound.”

In 2018, Jameson’s honors included Collegiate Baseball Freshman All-American, Baseball America Freshman All-American second team, MAC Freshman Pitcher of the Year, all-MAC first team and MAC Pitcher of the Week (April 9, 2018).

Jameson says Ball State pitching coach Dustin Glant has reinforced his competitive drive by pushing him and firing him up.

What does compete mean to Jameson?

“It’s 100 percent every pitch,” says Jameson. “You don’t take a back seat. You don’t back down. You just go right at them.

“I’m super-competitive and have a chip on my shoulder. That’s very crucial to competing in my opinion. I trust myself. I trust the guys behind me.”

Jameson is the Cardinals’ Friday night starter for weekend series and is expected to take the ball Friday, April 26 against Bowling Green in Muncie.

Tuesday, April 23 was scheduled as a bullpen day. But since BSU was playing Indiana at Victory Field in Indianapolis, Jameson took another opportunity to compete and worked the first inning. It took him 14 pitches to strike out all three batters he faced.

With wipe-out breaking stuff to go with the heat (he regularly touches 94 to 97 mph and registered 100 twice on the Miami University scoreboard on April 12), Jameson can be a handful for hitters.

In 11 starts in 2019, he is 2-3 with a 3.53 earned run average. He has 92 strikeouts and 20 walks in 58 2/3 innings with a WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) of 1.12. Opponents are hitting .211 against him.

Jameson has worked with former Pendleton Heights High School, Ball State and Arizona Diamondbacks system pitcher and current Chicago White Sox area scout Justin Wechsler.

“He’s been a very big help for me,” says Jameson. “He’s helped me with my mechanics and getting into my legs a lot more than I used to.”

Maloney says Wechsler was also a fierce competitor with a nasty breaking ball.

Robbie Miller was Jameson’s head coach at Greenfield-Central.

“He was a fun guy to be around,” says Jameson of Miller. “I love Robbie. He’s a very competitive guy when it comes to baseball. He’s a guy like myself. He loves to compete and hates to lose.”

The son of Daryl Stephens and Saline Jameson, Drey also competed for the GC Cougars on the football field and basketball court.

A point guard on the hardwood, Jameson’s main focus was on defense. He enjoyed locking down the other team’s top-scoring guard.

Again with the competitor.

Drey Jamseon, a Ball State University sophomore right-hander, delivers a pitch. (Ball State University Photo)

Ball State University sophomore baseball pitcher Drey Jameson is a graduate of Greenfield (Ind.)-Central High School. (Ball State University Photo)

Drey Jamseon, a Ball State University sophomore right-hander, delivers a pitch. He is eligible for the 2019 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft.  (Ball State University Photo)

Drey Jamseon, a Ball State University sophomore right-hander, brings it against a batter. In his first 58 2/3 innings in 2019, he has 92 strikeouts and 20 walks. (Ball State University Photo)

Diamond expectations high for Miller’s Greenfield-Central Cougars

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Greenfield-Central stood toe-to-toe with the team that went on to go undefeated and hoist the 2017 IHSAA Class 4A state championship trophy.

A 1-0 eight-inning loss to Indianapolis Cathedral in last season’s Decatur Central Regional semifinals is enough for the toes of GC players to hit the floor early while preparing for 2018.

“I’ve got 30 kids coming in at 5:45 in the morning,” says Greenfield-Central head coach Robbie Miller. “It’s the only time we can get the gym. That shows how dedicated they are.

“I demand a lot of them. After last year, they see the rewards when we put the time in.

“We can’t just be happy getting there. We’ve got to expect to be there every year. We’ve got to be able to compete at that level to get to the ultimate prize.”

Cougars right-hander Drey Jameson did not allow a hit while striking out 14 over the first seven innings against Cathedral. But the ace bound for the Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association North/South All-Star Series and a spot on the Ball State University roster hit the new pitch limit of 120 and had to leave the mound.

The Irish plated the winning run on a Jake Andriole single with two outs in the top of the eighth. Cathedral went on top Roncalli, Columbus North and Penn on the way to a 29-0 record and a 4A state crown.

“Baseball is a game of inches,” says Miller of the narrow loss to Cathedral. “We had a guy on third base and one out in the bottom of the sixth and our guy hit a one-hop shot to the shortstop. If it’s an inch one way or another we win the ball game in seven innings.”

Miller, who enters his fourth season as GC head coach in 2018, is always talking to his players about high expectations.

Miller’s message: “Everyday you walk on the field it’s a battle. You’ve got to expect to win every time you take the field. You can’t just show up and win. You’ve got to expect and play to win the game.”

A 1997 New Palestine High School graduate who played baseball for coach Lance Marshall at Franklin College, Miller joined the GC coaching staff in 2001. He took two years off just before taking over as head coach.

Miller’s first stint as a varsity assistant at Greenfield-Central came with C.J. Glander. He was a straight shooter with his players and Miller operates the same way.

“You have to be honest with kids and call a spade a spade,” says Miller. “That’s how I look at. It seems that the kids respect that.”

Before and after each season, Miller meets one-on-one with all the players in the program and talks to them about their roles for the coming season or how the just-completed season went.

“Sometimes they like what they hear. Sometimes they don’t like what they hear,” says Miller. “But I’m not going to be one of those that’s going sugarcoat anything with them.”

The 2017 team was filled with players who understood and accepted their roles.

Miller embraces “small ball” and and “quality at-bats” and wants his players to buy into the team concept. The 2017 Cougars went 18-11 while hitting just .245 as squad.

“When we get a sacrifice bunt down, I want everyone in the dugout to go and give him ‘five,’’ says Miller. “He just gave away his at-bat for his team to help us move a runner.

“You should be happy going 0-for-4 and winning vs. going 4-for-4 and losing. That’s about being a team.”

An eight-pitch at-bat that results in a strikeout is still considered a quality at-bat. So is moving the runner with a grounder to the right side of the infield.

Miller also spent one summer coaching with the Indiana Bulls travel organization and a staff that included Glander and Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Famer Dennis Kas.

“(Kas) used to say that baseball is a game of when. When do you get the hit? When do you make the error?

“People have got to understand that. It’s OK not to have the .500 batting average. I’d rather they hit .280 with 40 RBIs.”

Miller wants his athletes to hold each other accountable.

“If a person next to you is taking a play off, you need to yell at them,” says Miller. “You can do it in a respectful way. But you need to tell them to get their act together.

“Some of the best teams I played on, we were ready to fight. When practice or the game was over, we were best friends.”

While Jameson has moved on and the 2018 Cougars will have plenty of underclassmen with pitching talent, the expectations have not been lowered. Besides that, GC will be defending sectional champions (GC reigned at Pendleton Heights in 2017) and a target to the teams on their schedule.

“It comes with the territory,” says Miller. “I’m trying to get the program from ‘Yay, we played Greenfield!’ to ‘Oh no, we play Greenfield!’”

The Class of 2018 is small but Miller appreciates the leadership. Catcher Braxton Turner is drawing collegiate interest.

Miller’s 2018 assistants will include Mark Vail (former Eastern Hancock head coach), Harold Gibson (father of Minnesota Twins pitcher and 2006 GC graduate Kyle Gibson), Brent Turner and Brandon Plavka. Others are expected to join the staff. Miller says the Cougars could field varsity, junior varsity and freshman/C-teams this spring.

Greenfield-Central belongs to the Hoosier Heritage Conference (along with Delta, Mt. Vernon of Fortville, New Castle, New Palestine, Pendleton Heights, Shelbyville and Yorktown).

The Cougars are grouped in a 4A sectional with Anderson, Connersville, Mt. Vernon of Fortville, Muncie Central, Pendleton Heights and Richmond.

All-time, GC has won 13 sectionals and one regional (2006) and are looking for their first semistate and state titles.

Fenway Park in Boston has it’s “Green Monster.” Molinder Field at Greenfield-Central has a smaller version. The 22-foot high barrier which is about 305 feet from home plate down the left field line was recently re-furbished.

Because of a road down the left field line, the dimensions of the field can’t be expanded to any great extent.

“Anyone who comes there is going to try to hit it over the wall,” says Miller. “We’re trying to get them change their approach at the plate. It just puts a different touch on it. Before, it was just a chain link fence.”

Feeder programs for the high school include Greenfield Youth Baseball Association and travel organizations including two with operations in town — the Indiana Bandits (started by Harold Gibson in 1996) and the Midwest Astros Academy (which established a training facility in Greenfield last fall).

There are also seventh and eighth grade baseball teams at Greenfield-Central Junior High School.

Robbie Miller enters his fourth season as head baseball coach at Greenfield-Central High School in 2018. The 2017 Cougars won the IHSAA Class 4A Decatur Central Sectional. (Steve Krah Photo)

 

Big leaguer Gibson has not forgotten his Greenfield roots

BY STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Kyle Gibson now wears the colors of the Minnesota Twins and spends his off-seasons near the team’s spring training camp in Fort Myers, Fla. But the 6-foot-6 right-hander takes a piece of Greenfield, Indiana wherever he goes.

Gibson grew up in the Hancock County town located east of Indianapolis and learned lessons about baseball and life that he still carries as a fifth-year major leaguer.

Harold Gibson, Kyle’s father, was part of a group that started the Indiana Bandits travel team in 1996.

“That was at the beginning of when travel baseball took off in central Indiana,” says Kyle Gibson, who went from a small, skinny kid to a starter in the Twins rotation. He is coming off a win Friday, Sept. 22 at Detroit. “I am where I am today thanks to that group of guys starting that for us.”

Flashing back, Kyle spent three high school summers at IMG Academy in Florida after enduring his first pitching arm operation at 15.

“I’m a big believer that God puts me in certain situations for a reason,” says Gibson of a procedure to repair a fractured growth plate. “I came out of that surgery my freshmen year following Christ as a much as ever.”

Kyle spent his freshmen season at Indianapolis Cathedral High School, coached by Rich Andriole (who recently was named head coach at Guerin Catholic High School), and the last three years of high school baseball at Greenfield-Central, where C.J. Glander was head coach and Harold Gibson — who pitched for the Cougars then one year at the junior college level — was a volunteer.

Kyle and Glander arrived at GC at the same time and by Gibson’s junior and senior seasons, the program was turned in a positive direction with the head coach’s attention to detail.

“He was really, really good at pushing guys he knew wanted to play in college,” says Gibson, who was Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association All-Star Series MVP in Terre Haute in 2006. “He was also good with the guy who’s senior year was going to be their last playing baseball.

“He made sure to make it fun.”

More mature — physically, mentally and spiritually — than when he had his first surgery, there was a “Tommy John” ligament replacement for Kyle near the end of his second professional season (2011).

After three seasons at the University of Missouri, Gibson was selected in the first round of the 2009 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft by the Twins and he made his MLB debut for Minnesota at Target Field in Minneapolis on June 29, 2013, against Kansas City, surrendering two runs on eight hits in six innings pitched with no walks and five strikeouts, earning the win. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the win and five strikeouts made him just the third Twin to win their big league debut while striking out five-or-more batters, the others being Hall of Famer Bert Blyleven in 1970 at RFK Stadium against Washington and Darrell Jackson in 1978 at Metropolitan Stadium against Detroit; they each had seven strikeouts.

Among those in the crowd that day were parents Harold and Sharon and current Greenfield-Central head baseball coach Robbie Miller (an assistant when Kyle was a Cougar). Kyle and Harold still have an impact on baseball in Greenfield as co-owners of a training facility at I-70 and S.R. 9 that caters to ages 8 and up.

At Mizzou, Kyle gained baseball knowledge from pitching coach Tony Vitello while also meeting his future wife, St. Louis area native Elizabeth.

“(Vitello) had a big hand in developing me as a player — physically and mentally,” says Gibson. “I still tap into all that information that they taught us (at Missouri).”

As MU’s pitching coach from 2004-10, Vitello helped develop 15 Mizzou pitchers who were drafted by major league teams, including current Washington Nationals star Max Scherzer, as well as first-round picks Gibson and Aaron Crow.

Kyle sent a text of congratulations to Vitello when he recently was named head coach at the University of Tennessee.

Kyle and Elizabeth Gibson have two children — daughter Hayden (3 1/2) and son Mills (9 months) — and plan to spend the off-season between Florida, family in Indiana and Missouri and also doing some mission work in the Dominican Republic with organizations like One Child Matters, Bright Hope Ministries and Help One Now.

While the Gibsons were away with baseball, their Florida neighbors put up storm shutters that kept out the wind and water of Hurricane Irma.

Right now, the Kyle and the Twins are focused on holding on to the second wild card in the American League and Gibson could be part of any postseason success enjoyed by Minnesota.

Currently 12-10 with a 5.02 earned run average in 28 starts with 115 strikeouts and 60 walks in 154 1/3 innings, Gibson said he is right when he can establish his four-season and two-seam fastballs and mix in his sinker, slider and change-up.

“The fastball is very important to me,” says Gibson, who has worked with Neil Allen as Twins pitching coach since 2015. “I’m working on locating it and getting ahead (in the count). I’m trying to get (hitters) to come out of their approach and make them make quick decisions.”

While he occasionally needs to elevate a pitch, Gibson tends to concentrate on keeping balls low to induce grounders and let his defense help him out.

Kyle Gibson, a 2006 Greenfield-Central High School graduate, delivers a pitch for the Minnesota Twins. Gibson is in the starting rotation for a team fighting for a 2017 postseason berth. (MLB Photo)