Seniors taking it one pitch at a time

The first game of the 2019 season served as a wake-up call for the Mountain Brook High School baseball team.

The Spartans fell to Gardendale 2-1. Their only run came on a Colton Yeager sacrifice fly in the first inning. They scratched out just three hits in the final six innings, and Gardendale rallied to win on a two-run walk-off single in the bottom of the seventh.

Gardendale is no slouch. The Rockets are a perennially solid Class 6A program. But Mountain Brook plays in arguably the toughest area in 7A and believed it was the better team. 

“First game of the year, we lost and it was kind of a slap in the face to us,” said senior first baseman and pitcher James Burkett. “Maybe we aren’t as good as we thought we were.”

Following that game, Mountain Brook rolled off five straight victories and held a 20-7 record through the month of March. 

Burkett, one of eight Spartan seniors this spring, said the team “has matured a lot this year.” Senior third baseman Colton Yeager said the team has also learned how to be more focused in their efforts.

“We’ve really learned to play one pitch at a time,” Yeager said. “If we worry about the other team and stop worrying about ourselves, then we’ve already lost the game right there.”

It’s easy to look ahead when playing in an area like Mountain Brook found itself in this season. The Spartans competed in Area 6 with the likes of Hewitt-Trussville, Vestavia Hills and Spain Park, and all four teams are considered to be some of the best in 7A.

The unfortunate truth is only two of those teams could qualify for the state playoffs, with Hewitt-Trussville and Vestavia Hills claiming those two playoff spots in late April.

Mountain Brook began area play with a two-game sweep of Spain Park the first week of April. But the Spartans were swept by Vestavia Hills the following week and were eliminated from postseason contention with its loss to Hewitt-Trussville on April 16.

“We knew this was going to be a really tough area,” said Dowd Ritter, a senior pitcher who will play at the University of Alabama. Ritter parlayed a solid junior season of school ball into a big summer on the travel circuit and garnered the offer from Alabama. 

Burkett noted that several of the players on the Spartans play on elite travel teams in the summer, so they are accustomed to playing the best of the best. High-level competition certainly has not intimidated the Spartans.

“We embrace playing the best teams in the city of Birmingham,” he said.

Joining that senior group this year is a large junior class that went undefeated in 2018 at the junior varsity level. Burkett has been pleased with what he’s seen.

“It’s a huge jump from JV to varsity,” he said. “They’ve responded tremendously well and they have been clutch for us all year.”

Pitcher Hayden Bruno is heading to play at Tallahassee Community College, Ritter is going to Alabama and Yeager has signed with Wallace State. Collin Bussman, John Marks, Joe Saia, Brooks Autrey and Burkett round out the senior class. Most of them have played together since the days of tee ball.

“It’s kind of weird, just knowing that throughout my whole life, all my summers have revolved around baseball,” Burkett said. “It’s crazy how fast time has flown by and to not take anything for granted.”