By Jayden Mies
Freelance Reporter
Special to the Tribune
With winter sports ending and Pratt High School beginning spring break, spring sports have kicked off for the 2025 season. One of these was the PHS baseball team, led by Head Coach Ron Hill and a class of four seniors.
Throughout the past two weeks, Hill has been hard at work preparing his squad for the upcoming spring season. Last season, his Greenbacks had claimed a 22-4 regular season, winning the Central Kansas League title for the fourth straight year. They had also claimed the regional title, which was the first time in several years that the Greenbacks punched their ticket to state.
At the state tournament, the Greenbacks were able to power through exciting games against Circle and Abilene but unfortunately lost to the #1 overall seed Rock Creek by a final score of 3-7.
Since then, Hill and his returning players have been looking to make some more noise this spring, as he is returning several starters from last year’s squad.
This year, according to Hill, there are 22 total players out for baseball. These are led by four seniors: Owen Schmidt, Chaz Teafatiller, Kyler Barker, and Ethan Koger. The team also has other returning varsity players in Josiah Schmidt, Cresten Pore, and Caleb Strong.
As many of these players were on the basketball team, which competed at the state tournament, the full squad hasn’t been able to rack up a solid number of practices together quite yet. However, Hill says that he is happy that his players were able to find success in basketball, and he has faith that they will be prepared as they progress through the next practices.
When he was asked which players he saw stepping up into leadership roles next season, Hill said that he expects the Schmidt brothers to fill those this year.
“Owen and Josiah possess a high baseball IQ, and they’ve been working to become more vocal during practice. They also have a great amount of passion and drive for the game that we hope will be contagious, and they really helped to change the culture of Pratt baseball,” he said.
Next, Hill talked about the good things that last year’s team did to find success.
He said, “To continue to be successful, we have to have several guys step up at a high level to replace the strong senior class we had. This comes with leadership from our current upperclassmen, and the team will have to be devoted to improving each day.”
Hill’s last comments regarded his excitement for the nearing season, which is only a few days away.
“I am most excited to see the growth that we will have as a team. I’m ready to see how they learn to work hard and improve together, and being a team is always my favorite thing to see.”
Two seniors, Schmidt and Teafatiller, also wanted to share their thoughts on their last high school season. First, Schmidt was asked what things the team will need to home in on to have success this year.
He said, “We need to continue to get better every single day in practice, just like we did last year. We made it to where we did because of our hard work, and that needs to be our focus again to take us to where we want to be.”
Teafatiller built onto this, saying that maintaining focus is of the upmost importance for the Greenbacks.
“Just because we made it to state last year doesn’t mean that we have an easy road ahead of us this year. We need to work on having strong communication with each other and work together as a family,” he said.
With it being both of these seniors’ last year of taking the field as high schoolers, they have expressed great excitement for the campaign.
Schmidt said, “I’m very excited to be a part of this team against and be able to lead as a senior. With this being the last year, I want to make it count and I’m ready to see how our team develops throughout the season and does great things.”
Chaz concluded his thoughts by reflecting on what Owen said.
“With it being my senior year, I am excited to share the field one last time in high school with my brothers and make every moment count. Also, I think that making it back to the state tournament would be a good farewell for our class.”
Pratt will kick off their 2025 season on the road against Hutchinson on Monday, March 24. There, they will hope to get off on the right foot to what should be another successful season for PHS.
