Piketon Baseball to Honor 1985 Class A Final Four Team
Article presented by Tomlinson Insurance Agency …
Piketon High School’s Baseball Program will honor the 1985 Class A State Final Four team on March 23rd. The Redstreaks finished 20-10 in 1985.
The team will be recognized in a ceremony prior to the Redstreaks’ regular season opener with Oak Hill. The first pitch is scheduled for 11am.
Scott Legg, a junior in ’85, told Litter Media “We just played for the love of the game and to have a good time.”
The team was made up of kids who faced each other throughout the summer, from Elm Grove, Jasper, Piketon, Wakefield and Zahn’s Corner, but never really got to know each other until they reached high school.
“Just like we had in Little, Babe Ruth, and Pony Leagues, we just played” said Legg. “We found out we liked each other when we all were finally on the same team and it was so much fun. We never took it too seriously as we were a very loose group. We were all competitors who became best high school friends.”
Legg (6-3, 2.13 ERA) led the Redstreaks pitching staff with 59 innings pitched. Between them, Rick Robinson (5-1, 44K, 46.2 IP, 4.69 ERA) and Dwayne “Punky” Howard (5-0, 31 IP, 1.58 ERA) and Legg combined for 16 of the team’s wins.
“I have to give credit to the summer coaches from the different summer leagues around Pike County”, Head Coach, Steve Chester told Litter Media. “They did a fantastic job of teaching the fundamentals of the game. I just added on to what the players already knew.”
Chester said the turning point to the season came following a loss to Scioto Valley Conference foe, Zane Trace.
“We were ahead by a wide margin”, said Chester. “Through our own mistakes, Zane Trace rallied to defeat us. I was very upset as was the team. After the game, the team agreed that we would not lose again. As it turned out, we did not lose very many more games the remainder of the regular season.”
After winning the District Final, Chester’s club shutout Mt. Gilead 3-0 to reach the Portsmouth Regional Final.
The run nearly ended there.
Piketon trailed Cardington 7-0 before rallying to edged the Pirates 9-8 punching their ticket to the Class A Final Four.
Despite the deficit, Chester knew his Redstreaks weren’t ready to call it quits. “Because of the loose attitude they always had… we could still fight back and win.”
“We never thought we were beaten and genuinely thought no one was better than us” Legg recounted. “If we were beaten then we just felt like we just ran out of innings. My best childhood buddy and cousin Ed Alexander hit that mammoth 3-run home run to center field 400 feet-plus to get us on the board and it was game on from there.”
The club didn’t need extra motivation to keep going. Chester said that came from their opponents along the tourney trail. “We faced Kyger Creek in the District Semi-Finals. Their coach looked at me, even before we shook hands, and claimed that his team was so good, they were going to the state.”
How’d Piketon respond?
“We crushed them (11-1)” said Chester.
Next came state-ranked Lucasville Valley in the District Final. Chester said the Indians didn’t go with their number-1 starter. “They didn’t throw their ace because the feeling was that they could get by using their number-two pitcher. It was a bad decision as we won.”
Discounting the Streaks continued in at the Regional. “Mt. Gilead and Cardington-Lincoln are two communities very close together north of Columbus”, Chester explained. “Both schools were so sure of themselves that they agreed that after winning the Regional Semi-Final games, the championship game should be moved up north so that both schools wouldn’t have to travel long distance to Portsmouth. Cardington won their contest easily, but Piketon spoiled Mt. Gilead’s plan.
Piketon was limited to 4-hits in the State Semi-Final by Fort Loramie’s Jeff Barhorst, who struck out 12 Streaks in the game. Piketon’s Rick Robinson yielded 4-runs on six-hits over six-innings in taking the loss.
The Redstreaks lineup included shortstop Chris Legg, who drove in the lone run against Fort Loramie, scoring right fielder Greg Jordan on a one-out single. The rest of the infield included Alexander at first, Trace Davis at second, Jamie Ritchie at third and Paul Goode behind the plate. Jordan was in right, with Scott Legg in center and Jeff Anderson in left. Kevin Moore handled the designated hitter spot and Punky Howard came on as a pinch-hitter.
Other team members included Sam Steele, Phillip Day, Danny Williams, Everett Dunn, Robert Bowman, Galen Burkitt, Lewie Pritchett, Assistant Coach, Darrell Andronis and manager Wayne Smith.
When reflecting on his 1985 pitching staff that season, Chester was quick to note “As a coach, it’s a comfort to know that no matter who you throw the team was in good hands.”
Ritchie led the team in RBI with 30 the ‘85 season in which the Redstreaks won 17 of their last 20 games.
“It was a pleasure to coach this team” said Chester “ Because I never had to deal with any internal problems, They all were good friends and got along so well.”
Chester spent 41 years in the Scioto Valley Local School system and stepped away 2023 moving to east Central Ohio and he’s back to coaching, as an assistant football coach at Lakewood High School. “I knew I wasn’t done with coaching – applied at Lakewood and got hired.”
“The only sad thing after catching ‘lightning in a bottle’ was not losing, but that it had to end and we’d never be together again” added Legg. Coach Chester and the members of the ’85 team will reunite for one more opening day, March 23rd.
