Indians find early bird gets the hits

It's 5:55 a.m. and already there are five trucks and a couple cars in the Jackson Junior High School parking lot.

Before a minute goes by three more vehicles pull in, and eventually members of the Jackson baseball team exit their rides and head inside.

One of them lets out an elongated but not sarcastic "Woo!" before adding, "Swinging at 6!"

That's why they're all here. Four days a week for most of the season the majority of the team has been here at 6 a.m. to swing.

"The fun thing was, or interesting, us players, we decided to hit in the morning," senior Ryan O'Rear said. "We talked to coach and we're like, ‘Hey, we want to hit at 6 every morning except on Wednesdays, and he was all game for that. It was our choice. No matter how much maybe some of us complain about hitting in the morning, it was our choice. It really does help."

There is an understanding that all hitters on the team are supposed to be there each morning. Coach Tatum Kitchen is there every morning to let them in the door and often to throw some pitches, but not to offer much instruction.

"It's laid back," Kitchen said. "I'm not all over them screaming hitting clinic stuff at them. They just come in and swing."

And they win, too.

The extra hitting work and an impressive pitching staff that has a combined 1.25 ERA have helped the Indians win 19 games to six losses so far this season, which according to Kitchen ties the team for the most wins in school history. No Jackson team has ever won 20 games.

Kitchen said there are three things that likely led to the team's motivation to ask for the morning sessions. First, many of the players participated in similar sessions while on the JV team. Second, the team has 10 seniors who want to make the most of their final season. Third, they are a group that is "ate up with baseball."

"It's important to them," Kitchen said.

The players have a well-practiced routine at this point. They split themselves into four stations -- one to hit off a tee, one to hit tossed tennis balls into a net and two in indoor cages with either Kitchen or a teammate throwing to them.

O'Rear mostly handles the music selection.

"We have a lot of different things," he said. "Occasionally we have ‘Taylor Swift Tuesday.' Not from my phone, but from some other phones we also have ‘Unedited Thursday.' You've got to be a little careful with that one. We have a country playlist I play, got a rock playlist, we've got our main baseball playlist we play at home. I like to switch it up, that's always fun."

"Unedited Thursday" was put on hold with my arrival.

Kitchen said there have been days when players have dragged in late, and sometimes the tennis balls start flying toward players near the end of the 20- to 25-minute hitting session, but for the most part everyone comes in ready to work.

"The teams around our area are just so good and their pitching [is good]," O'Rear explained when asked why he and his teammates asked to hit in the mornings. "And when people face Jackson we get to see their No. 1 a lot of the time, so we have to be on top of our hitting and this keeps an edge, being able to hit a couple buckets in the morning every day."

When they've finished, the team spends more time together before school starts.

"The second thing is it's kind of a bonding experience for us," O'Rear said. "It brings us closer as a team because, you know, people are cranky in the morning, so you get to know people's different sides and it brings us together. After this, we have a little time before school so we'll all go somewhere to eat for breakfast every morning. It really does bring us closer. It's just a good experience all around."

In collecting their 19 wins, the Indians have claimed both the regular-season and tournament titles in the always strong SEMO Conference.

"It's neat for them to understand what they've accomplished and where they could be in history," Kitchen said. "But at the same time with districts, you're one game away from going home, so you can't get too caught up in any of that stuff because it's not a double-elimination tournament. If you have one bad day, if it's a close game and you get one bad break, it's over."

The Indians are the No. 2 seed in Class 5 District 1. They'll face the winner of today's game between No. 3 Poplar Bluff and No. 6 Hillsboro at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Hillsboro. Jackson lost 8-2 to top-seeded Seckman in a regular-season game Monday.

We've had a great year," O'Rear said. "Our record looks great, and that's all great. But this is it. This is why we've been working this hard. This is why we come and swing at 6 is because of these games right here. We're going to face some tough teams -- Hillsboro and Poplar Bluff, whoever we get, they've got guys who can pitch and can hit the ball. We've got to be ready. We can't let our past results take us out of the game for the most important games coming up here."

Rachel Crader is editor of semoball.com.