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Tournaments | Story | 6/27/2021

Rays playoff push certainly no fluke

Jeff Dahn

Photo: Caleb Karll (Perfect Game)

MARION, Iowa – It’s almost as if something magical happens when the Wisconsin-based Greg Reinhard Baseball (GRB) Academy organization sends its always competitive teams west to play in equally competitive Perfect Game tournaments at the three-year-old Prospect Meadows Sports Complex.

GRB Rays teams have already won several PG WWBA championships at the new venue in the last couple of years and made an early splash at this weekend’s 3rd annual PG WWBA 16u North Championship.

While all 32 teams were guaranteed a slot in the event’s single-elimination playoffs which began Sunday morning, the GRB Rays played a little bit of a game of one-upmanship by having three of its entrants – the No. 1 Rays Green, No. 3 Rays Yellow and No. 4 Rays MKE Green – earn spots among the top-4 seeds; No. 2 Rhino Baseball McArthur out of Illinois was the only interloper.

Additionally, the GRB Rays MKE Yellow entered bracket-play Sunday as the No. 15 seed despite a 1-1-0 pool-play record, giving one organization four of the top-15 seeds. Even more impressively, all four won their first round games on Sunday to advance to the late, late show that was the playoff’s second round.

“As an organization, we’ve done really well,” Rays Yellow head coach Ralph Kalal told PG on Sunday. “We’ve got good talent in the state and to see the seedings as they came out last night I was really happy for the players in particular; they’ve worked hard.

“After what happened last year with Covid, to see us come out and play really well is a really special moment for the players and the organization, as well.”

The Rays Green, Rays Yellow and Rays MKE Green went a combined 9-0-0 during pool-play; the Green outscored their opponents by a combined 29-3 to earn the top seed while the Yellow (27-8) and the MKE Green (19-12) also did enough to crack the seedings’ top-4.

“Obviously, when you come in here you want to represent the organization the right way,” Rays MKE Green head coach Eric Semmelhack said. “I think it just speaks to the kind of quality of players that we’re developing and the quality of players that we’re getting into our program.”

GRB Rays Green head coach Cooper Stewart told PG that the coaches and directors within the GRB organization try to take a uniform approach in terms of how each team is going to practice and prepare. Every team, from the youngest in the youth program to the oldest at the high school level know how it wants to play the game every time it steps on the field.

“We’ve gotten some pretty good pitching performances right out of the gate,” Stewart said of his club. “Offensively, it’s just the mindset of ‘no let-up’.”

Through their first four games, the Rays Green were led at the plate by t-1000 outfielder Caleb Karll, who was nothing short of terrific. He belted a pair of home runs – including a grand slam in a 7-5 win over the ISA Stars Black 2023 in the first-round win – with a triple and nine RBI.

He’s a perfect example of the type of player that tends to fill these GRB Rays rosters.

“We just kept our energy up the entire time. We never let down; we just always stayed up there,” Karll said before adding how much he was looking forward to being on this stage. “We want competition; we want to prove ourselves. We want to show that GRB is one of the top programs in the Midwest and I think we’ve started to do that here.”

Maxwell Kalk, Evan Gustafson and Kale Twombly also hit the ball well for the Rays Green through the first round of the playoffs, and pitchers Roman Trapani, Braden Smith and Drew Brookman gave the team some valuable innings during their starts.

Smith is in his fourth year of being involved with the GRB organization and with this Green team he describes an outfit that’s all business when it needs to be but otherwise is pretty loose and at ease.

“It’s a good program; this is a good group,” Smith said. “I’ve been with a lot of these kids ever since I started here and they’re all good guys, all great players. They all push me to be my best and it’s a great place to be.”

The only thing Stewart really talks to his players about is what he calls the team’s “FEEs” referring to focus, energy and effort every single time it takes the field; execution is the last piece. Another subject he broaches is to just go out there play relaxed regardless of the opponent. As he said, “It doesn’t matter if it’s the Chicago Cubs or the Cedar Rapids Kernels, the game doesn’t change.”

“With every single pitch, their approach has gotten better,” Stewart added. “We’re starting to become more uniform and consistent and that’s the biggest thing for us.”

The Rays Yellow, coming in as the No. 3 seed, escaped with a 6-5, come-from-behind victory over the Fargo Metro Baseball Association in its first-round game, surviving to play again.

When asked what his team has been doing particularly well that helped it reach the playoffs’ second round, Kalal began by pointing out that the pitching had been pretty darn good for the most part with solid performances out of starters Carson Dupuis and Daelen Johnson.

Kalal most likely spoke for every coach in the GRB organization when he said that he doesn’t speak to his players about expectations. It’s just not something that needs to be talked about simply because the players have such high expectations of themselves.

These are young prospects from the Upper Midwest who want to do well and who thrive in a competitive environment, and they’ve learned the most efficient way is to go out and not just do their job but do it very well.

“Wins and losses shouldn’t be talked about a whole lot because if we do our job and we do what we talk about [during] the winter, then it will take care of itself on the field,” Kalal said.

Daelen Johnson has also hit the ball well, as has Hudson Turner, Chayce Osterhaus, Kegan Schlichting and Caden Popp; Turner had seven hits in the four games, including a double, and drove in six runs.

“It’s been great; these guys are a lot of fun,” he said. “We’ve been playing really well. We’ve been hitting the ball well, pitching well, just a lot of good baseball; it’s been a good time.”

When asked if he feels like he has something to live up to each time he slips on that jersey with “Rays” emblazoned across his chest, Turner took the middle road: “At the end of the day you’re just having fun just playing the game,” he said. “You do kind of have that (feeling) but it’s really just playing the game.”

Kalal most likely spoke for every coach in the GRB organization when he said that he doesn’t really talk to his players about expectations. It’s just not something that needs to be talked about simply because the players have such high expectations of themselves.

These are young players from the Upper Midwest who want to do well and who thrive in a competitive environment, and they’ve learned the most efficient way to go out and not just do their job but do it very well.

“Wins and losses shouldn’t be talked about a whole lot because if we do our job and we do what we talk about in the winter right, then [everything] will take care of itself on the field,” Kalal said.

The Rays MKE Green’s Semmelhack offered much of the same with his comments when it came to assessing the team’s level of play. He admitted that it’s the offense that often carries his club and he got solid contributions from guys like Ashton Kampa and Maxamillion Martin enroute to the playoffs’ second round.

“We took care of business in pool-play and we sat ourselves up pretty nice for the playoff run here,” Semmelhack said. “We try to take care of the small things like defense and not giving up the free bases on the mound. It’s just trying to execute on the small details; that’s what we’ve got to do.”

The MKE Green did get an excellent start out of 2024 right-hander Eddie Rynders in the team’s 4-2 playoff-opening win over the BLG Replacements Sunday afternoon when he scattered seven hits over six innings without allowing an earned run; Rynders was also a key contributor at the plate with a double and four RBI to his credit.

“It’s a great feeling to get that first one out of the way,” Rynders said. “Let’s just hope we can continue to play well (moving forward). … “This has been a really good experience. It’s fun to play competitive teams and we’ve been [fortunate] to play well.”

It all comes down to the enjoyment that being part of a successful organization – a successful program that puts the interests of its player first – can bring when competing at a tournament as competitive as the PG WWBA 16u North Championship. Putting that uniform on means a lot to these young prospects.

“It’s amazing that in the past history of the GRB Rays, it’s crazy all the college commitments, all the draft picks,” the Rays Green’s Karll said. “It’s great to be a part of it; it’s really an accomplishment for me...We really just want to improve. We want to show ourselves and we want to show all the scouts here who we are. We just play our best games and we just play hard; that’s what we do.”

Added his teammate Smith: “It definitely keeps me locked-in; keeps me focused,” he said when asked if he felt there was something to be lived-up to. “Playing for this team keeps me focused, keeps me on my game; makes me play my best.”

And this from the Yellow’s Turner: “They’re very engaging with you,” he said of the program’s leadership. “They want to get to know you; they want to get the most out of you to make you a good ballplayer and good person in general.”

Finally, leave it to Coach Kalal to place a bow on this package while explaining where the GRB Rays team’s successes on and off the field come from:

“We do have certain expectations for them on how they carry themselves when they show up to the ballpark,” Kalal said. “I’ve been doing this six years with this organization and I’ve had zero problems with player behavior or anything like that.

“These kids really take pride in being a member of the Rays organization and you can see it by the way they handle themselves pregame, during the game and postgame, as well, when we go out to dinner.”

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