BOURBON -ÊThis will be the last week Triton baseball coach Jim Shively will hear about Jake Burnett's missing button.

"Don't trust anything this guy says," said Burnett as he pulled his blue baseball jersey and pointed to the location. "Four years ago I told him to get a button sewn on this shirt, and look, I never did get it."

Burnett is one of six seniors on Triton's team. Their Triton careers will end this weekend at the state finals.

So will Shively's. He's resigning at the end of this season after eight years as Triton's coach. Junior varsity coach Ted Doty will replace him.

"I decided at the beginning of the year this would be my last year," he said. "I talked it over with my wife, Debbie, and with my kids getting older and being in little league, I want to be around them as much as I can."

His children are Zak, 8; Cody, 6; Lucas, 2; and Sam, 8 months. If you don't think little league is serious business with Shively, listen to what happened to him earlier this week.

"I lost my voice Monday coaching a little league game," he said.

And no, before you go getting the wrong idea, he didn't lose it because he's one of those intense, hot-head coaches.

If anything, his even keel helped 22-10 Triton right itself after the Trojans stumbled out to a 3-6 start. The Trojans are 19-4 over their last 23 games and play in Friday's Class A state semifinals against No. 3 Madison Shawe (30-4). The trip to state is the first in Triton baseball history.

Why the slow start? Triton's basketball team advanced to the regional, and four players from that team were baseball players, putting them behind for baseball season.

Triton also made key errors that led to big innings for opposing teams. Shively made only one major change, moving freshman left fielder Todd Blackford into the starting lineup.

Now all the Trojans do is win games, and they seem to find different ways to do it each time out.

They've done it with late heroics.

In the sectional championship, they fell behind 12-12 LaCrosse 4-0 and trailed 5-4 with two outs in the bottom of the seventh. They rallied to win 6-5.

They've done it with their offense.

They beat No. 4 Fort Wayne Blackhawk Christian (22-4), a team with five hitters batting .400 or better, 10-4 in Saturday's regional semifinals.

They've done it by playing close to perfect baseball.

They needed only three hits to beat No. 1 Washington Township (31-2) 2-1 in Saturday's regional championship. The hits were enough as the Trojans committed no errors and received a complete-game two-hitter from Burnett.

How important is pitching? Triton is 5-0 in the postseason with a water torture offense. The Trojans don't blast the ball all over the field; they single teams to death.

Triton has all of two extra-base hits - two - in the last four postseason games, yet here they are, one of four teams playing for the state championship. While the Trojans had 11 hits and scored 10 runs against Fort Wayne Blackhawk, only one hit was for extra bases.

The eight and nine hitters have come up with several clutch hits in the postseason. Blackford, the No. 8 hitter, is hitting .296, and his cousin Tyson Blackford, the No. 9 hitter, has upped his average from .214 at the end of the regular season to .250.

Nike's ads several years ago urged people to "Just Do It." After watching Triton survive in postseason games by scores of 6-5 and 2-1 with a small-ball offense, Shively repeats "just enough" when talking about his team.

"That's the way it's been with us all year," he said. "We find a way to score just enough to win games."

Triton's stellar pitching has been the key to its postseason run.

Shively will give the ball to senior right-hander Tyler Hensley in the state opener against Madison Shawe. Hensley has recorded four of Triton's five wins in the postseason, and he figures to be the most dominant pitcher in the Class A state finals.

In the other first-round game, 20-11 Tecumseh meets 19-12 Adams Central. These two teams made it to state despite their top starters having only five wins.

Madison Shawe has Gabe Martin (10-1, 2.11) and Derek Manaugh (9-2, 2.52), but looking inside the numbers, neither appears in Hensley's league.

Hensley, 11-4, has a 1.58 ERA and has allowed only 60 hits in 97 2-3 innings while striking out 146. Martin has allowed 56 hits in 59 2-3 innings, and Manaugh has allowed 69 hits in 72 1-3 innings.

This is why Shively believes Triton has the only player -ÊHensley - among the four teams who can be the difference-maker by himself.

"If Tyler throws strikes," he said, "we know the other team won't score a whole lot of runs off him. For us, it's been about scoring just enough to win."

Either Manaugh or Martin will start against Triton, but Madison Shawe coach Tim Armstrong hadn't named which one publicly as of Wednesday.

Madison Shawe's best player is Martin, who leads the team with a .456 batting average, a school-record 19 doubles, six home runs, 49 RBIs and 36 runs. The Highlanders, taking their first trip to state, set a school record with their 30 wins.

"Offensively, [Martin] leads us," Armstrong said. "Our strength has been defense. We average less than one error per game. Manaugh doesn't throw hard, but he's given up only one run over the last two games."

If exceptional starting pitching is the first reason Triton is competing at state, competing at state with double-figure losses, and competing at state after beating the No. 1 and No. 4 teams in the same day, the second may be strength of schedule.

Throughout the postseason Shively has referred to the weaker schedules other 1A schools play compared to the teams Triton faces, which includes bigger schools like South Bend LaSalle, Concord, NorthWood, New Prairie, John Glenn and Plymouth. After watching his No. 1 team lose to Triton, Washington Township coach Randy Roberts said "Triton played tougher teams night in and night out" than his team.

"The schedule we played has been really big," Shively said. "We've been in a lot of close games with good teams. We're used to it. I don't know if the other teams are used to that with the schedules they play. We know how to react when we are in a close game.

"We know we're a good team. In the tournament, it comes down to not letting the other team put together a big inning."

If history repeats itself, Triton should feel optimistic Friday. Madison Shawe, a school with 107 students in four grades, has a schedule filled with 1A schools like Borden, Rising Sun, Milan, Henryville, Jac-Cen-Del, Graceland Christian and Hauser.

But Armstrong downplayed the schedule comparisons.

"[The schedules] don't concern me as much," he said. "Traditionally baseball in the southern part of the state has been good the last few years."

Shively is used to good baseball as he was a right fielder on Bethel's 1990 team that won the NCCAA title. He hasn't broken out the "how you go about winning a title" speech for this year's Triton team but plans to do so before Friday's game.

"When I was on that team," he said, "we knew we had a good team. We didn't have to try to do anything outstanding. We just had to play our game.

"That's what we have to do now. We're playing at Victory Field, but it shouldn't matter if we are playing here at Triton or at Wrigley Field. Play the game as you always do. Playing at Victory Field should help us because we shouldn't get those tricky hops on that nice field."

Triton, one out away from seeing its season end with a sectional loss to LaCrosse, now finds itself playing on a Triple A baseball field for a shot at the state title.

"I told the kids between the sixth and seventh innings of that game that every team has a game like this in the tournament where you have to pull one out," Shively said of the LaCrosse game. "This is ours now. In my mind, I was already wondering what I would say if we lost. But nobody on our side gave up. Everybody still thought we had a chance."

Shively has a career record of 132-93 at Triton. Under Shively the Trojans have had only one losing season, his first year.

His team has him in a position to leave with a state title.

"I think it's nice I get to finish on Victory Field," he said. "Winning the regional last week already turned this into a great year for us. You have to have a solid team to get this far, and you also need a little bit of luck.

"These kids have won a lot of tough ballgames. We had seven or eight must wins in the conference, and we won them all. We've had five must wins in the tournament, and we've won them all."

Winning a state title would top everything off, but Shively knows what he will miss most when he leaves coaching. He will miss Jake Burnett popping off to him about his missing button. He will miss watching Tyler Hensley dominate hitters by using any one of four pitches in his arsenal.

"What I will miss most is just being with the kids," he said. "We had 10 or 11 go on to play college baseball. I like to think that maybe I had something to do with that. If I wasn't here, I don't know if that would have happened."

Class A Baseball State Finals

Friday/Saturday at Victory Field in Indianapolis

Friday

10:30 a.m. -ÊTriton (22-10) vs. No. 3 Madison Shawe (30-4)

12:45 p.m. -ÊAdams Central (19-12) vs. Tecumseh (20-11)

Saturday

9:30 a.m. - championship game

MADISON SHAWE HILLTOPPERS (30-4)

(minimum of 50 at-bats)

Player B/T Pos. Gr. AB H R RBI 2B 3B HR Avg.

Gabe Martin L/L OF/P 12 103 47 36 49 19 3 6 .456

Jared Tekulve L/R P/C 12 111 42 51 23 7 2 3 .378

Scott Duncan R/R IF 12 76 27 31 14 2 1 0 .355

Derek Manaugh R/R P/C 12 107 34 24 42 9 1 6 .318

Patrick Bruce R/R IF 11 105 29 27 21 5 0 0 .276

Matt Goley R/R OF 10 87 24 22 15 2 1 0 .276

Ryan Barringer R/L IF 11 102 25 30 19 6 0 1 .245

Daniel Goley R/R DH 12 75 16 13 7 6 0 0 .213

Dustin Thevenow R/R OF 12 88 17 17 16 6 0 3 .193

Pitcher W-L ERA GS CG IP H R ER BB SO

Martin 10-1 2.11 11 10 59.2 56 23 18 20 38

Manaugh 9-2 2.52 11 10 72.1 69 29 26 28 62

Tekulve 6-1 2.11 7 6 53 40 19 16 13 37

Bruce 3-0 3.27 2 0 15 13 7 7 11 12

Thevenow 2-0 7.47 3 1 15 13 17 16 11 20

State finals history: first appearance

Town: Madison

Enrollment: 107 in four grades

Last year: lost to Jac-Cen-Del 8-1 in Madison Shawe Sectional championship

Ranking: No. 3 in Class A

This year's postseason results:

Madison Shawe Sectional

Madison Shawe 9, Rising Sun 2

Madison Shawe 7, Jac-Cen-Del 0

Madison Shawe Regional

Madison Shawe 7, No. 5 Henryville 6

Madison Shawe 2, Springs Valley 1

TRITON TROJANS (22-10)

(minimum of 50 at-bats)

Player B/T Pos. Gr. AB H R RBI 2B 3B HR Avg.

Landon Grubbs L/R OF 12 92 31 26 20 7 0 2 .337

Tyler Hensley R/R P/SS 12 110 37 21 19 9 2 1 .336

Jake Burnett R/R SS/P 12 110 37 29 31 8 2 5 .336

Joey Potter R/R C 12 91 30 24 5 4 0 0 .330

Hager Holbrook R/R 1B 12 90 27 16 26 2 1 3 .300

Todd Blackford L/R OF/P 9 71 21 12 11 1 0 0 .296

Matthew Norman R/R 2B 11 87 24 12 10 2 0 0 .276

Bryan Watkins R/R 3B 10 86 23 14 10 0 0 0 .267

Tyson Blackford R/R OF 12 96 24 24 10 3 0 0 .250

Pitcher W-L ERA GS CG IP H R ER BB SO

Hensley 11-4 1.58 13 13 97.2 60 39 22 40 146

Burnett 4-2 2.43 9 4 54.2 47 30 19 18 47

Brent Savill 4-3 2.84 6 3 37 37 20 15 19 28

Td. Blackford 2-0 2.94 1 1 16.2 13 15 7 13 28

State finals history: first appearance

Town: Bourbon

Enrollment: 347 in four grades

Last year: lost to state runner-up Tri-County 6-5 in South Central Regional semifinals

Ranking: unranked

This year's postseason results:

LaCrosse Sectional

Triton 10, Culver Community 0

Triton 4, South Central 0

Triton 6, LaCrosse 5

South Central Regional

Triton 10, No. 4 FW Blackhawk Christian 4

Triton 2, No. 1 Washington Township 1

ADAMS CENTRAL FLYING JETS (19-12)

(minimum of 50 at-bats)

Player B/T Pos. Gr. AB H R RBI 2B 3B HR Avg.

Brian Butcher R/R P/IF 12 91 35 28 23 8 1 1 .385

Ked Hirschy R/R P/RF 12 106 37 25 24 9 2 0 .349

Zach Smith R/R DH/OF 11 92 32 21 14 12 0 2 .348

Nick Foreman R/R CF 12 68 21 21 11 1 1 1 .309

Tim Hower R/R 1B 12 85 24 12 13 2 0 0 .282

Josh Foster R/R P/2B 12 73 20 16 14 4 0 1 .274

Nick Houk R/R P/SS 12 99 27 31 15 4 1 2 .273

Curt Garwood R/R 3B/OF 12 93 25 29 16 6 0 2 .269

Ryan Bedwell R/R LF 10 63 13 11 6 3 0 1 .206

Pitcher W-L ERA GS CG IP H R ER BB SO

Hirschy 5-2 3.53 6 N/A 39.2 44 34 20 30 34

Foster 5-1 2.27 4 N/A 52.1 48 26 17 10 37

Butcher 4-2 3.82 8 N/A 51.1 61 44 28 23 51

Houk 4-7 2.53 9 N/A 55.1 36 46 22 64 57

State finals history: first appearance

Town: Monroe

Enrollment: 348 in four grades

Last year: lost to state champion Rossville 5-4 (9 innings) in Wapahani Regional semifinals

Ranking: unranked

This year's postseason results:

Wes-Del Sectional

Adams Central 15, Tri-Central 1

Adams Central 5, Southern Wells 2

Wapahani Regional

Adams Central 8, Indianapolis Cathedral 2

Adams Central 11, Monroe Central 9

TECUMSEH BRAVES (20-11)

(minimum of 50 at-bats)

Player B/T Pos. Gr. AB H R RBI 2B 3B HR Avg.

Jason Susott R/R P/OF 12 98 51 28 45 14 2 5 .520

Nathan Brandle R/R C/1B 12 99 45 35 29 12 2 2 .454

Alby Ransom R/R P/OF 12 92 40 37 29 9 2 4 .434

Trae Dayby R/R P/SS 11 102 41 39 24 12 2 3 .402

Jason Kingsbury R/R 3B 11 80 32 18 23 9 0 1 .400

Cory Julian L/L P/OF 9 59 21 13 14 1 0 0 .356

Kaleb Riecken R/R P/OF 11 100 34 27 21 10 0 0 .340

Chris Marshall R/R 2B 11 88 29 17 21 7 0 1 .329

Brad Meyer R/R C 10 54 12 10 4 1 0 0 .222

Pitcher W-L ERA GS CG IP H R ER BB SO

Julian 5-0 1.75 3 0 32 34 20 8 11 52

Ransom 5-4 2.05 11 6 61.1 50 30 18 30 82

Susott 5-7 4.22 12 6 61.1 53 54 37 53 98

Riecken 3-0 3.07 3 1 29.2 31 17 13 13 38

Dayby 2-0 0.00 1 1 7.2 1 0 0 3 17

State finals history: first appearance

Town: Lynnville

Enrollment: 198 in four grades

Last year: lost to Riverton Parke 16-7 in Loogootee Regional championship

Ranking: unranked, received 4 votes final poll

This year's postseason results:

Cannelton Sectional

Tecumseh 16, Cannelton 2

Tecumseh 10, Oakland City Wood 9

Loogootee Regional

Tecumseh 14, North Daviess 4

Tecumseh 7, No. 2 Riverton Parke 4 [[In-content Ad]]