Dallas County News

A-D-M’s Rash preps for college while eyeing MLB draft

sam — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:46:20 +0000

[caption id="attachment_11402" align="alignright" width="237" caption="A-D-M graduate Alec Rash warms up during a long-toss session with teammate Lucas Thompson on May 1. Rash, whose aresenal features a 95 mph fastball and hard-breaking slider, could be chosen in next month’s Major League Baseball draft. Sam Martin • DCN"][/caption] Highly touted pitcher has scholarship to Mizzou, but his plans could change following June 4 draft By Sam Martin Sports Editor Mitch Krumwiede smiles as he remembers the sixth-grader who unleashed sizzling throws during dodge ball games in his P.E. class. It was the same kid who confidently predicted, as an 11-year-old, that he would eventually pitch at a Division I college. That youngster, Alec Rash, is 18 now, with a 6-foot-5 frame and weighing in at 200 pounds. He sports a 95 mile-per-hour fastball and a debilitating slider. Rash, who graduated from A-D-M High School on Sunday, has seen his baseball journey take him from Adel to Alabama and back again. He has followed through on the promise he made to Krumwiede, A-D-M’s head baseball coach, seven years ago, and will head to the University of Missouri to start his collegiate baseball career this fall. That is, unless a Major League Baseball team comes calling on June 4 and is able to pry him away. “I’m anxious,” Rash said of the approaching draft. “I want to see what’s going to happen, but it will get here eventually.” More than 50 Division I colleges expressed interest in Rash before he committed to Mizzou last summer. He and his family have heard from 29 of the 30 Major League Baseball teams. What has had scouts and college coaches salivating? Rash’s fastball sits between 92-95 mph. He throws a hard-breaking 83 mph slider, which looks like a fastball before dropping sharply in the last 15 feet. He’s also working on a tailing changeup that cuts away from left-handed hitters and in on the hands of righties. The velocity alone is enough to make him stand out in Iowa, Krumwiede said. “They’re used to seeing kids who throw 74-79,” he said. “Your elite kids are going to throw low to mid 80s. But when you throw one 90 miles per hour? The last one we saw who did that was Tony Watson from Dallas Center-Grimes.” Watson, who played ball at Nebraska, is now a reliever for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The 18-year-old flamethrower is relaxed and eminently comfortable when he steps onto the field. He appears confident, but not arrogant, happy to allow his skill speak for itself. During a long-toss session with his A-D-M teammate and good friend Lucas Thompson on the Tigers’ baseball diamond earlier this month, Rash effortlessly hit Thompson’s glove time after time. They gradually stretched the distance up to 330 feet, with Rash positioned on the grass behind home plate and Thompson with his back to the left-field fence. The long-toss sessions are something both Alec and his father, Mike, credit with his success. Krumwiede remembers Alec participating in the sessions as a sixth-grader. “It’s not something that just came about,” he said of Rash’s pitching prowess. “It’s something where I think Alec had a gift from God as far as an arm, and they programmed and made it just that much better.” That focus sharpened Rash’s talent and resulted in his debut as a freshman at a showcase sponsored by Perfect Game USA, which bills itself as the world’s largest baseball scouting service. Rash hit 86 mph on the speed gun and was offered a spot on the fall select team. More invitations and appearances with Perfect Game followed. He started a few games for A-D-M his freshman year, then went 5-2 with a 1.96 ERA during his sophomore campaign, striking out 92 while allowing just 27 hits in 50 innings. His first start was a 15-strikeout performance against Atlantic, followed by a 17-strikeout one-hitter in a 1-0 win over Boone. [caption id="attachment_11403" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Alec Rash delivers a pitch during a game against Dallas Center-Grimes in 2010. File photo • DCN"][/caption] After that season, Rash’s mother, Lora, transferred from her job in Iowa to one in Alabama. Rash and his father joined her that fall, and he enrolled in Pelham High School, a large-school Class 6A baseball power in a suburb of Birmingham. Rash played basketball and earned all-metro honors, then joined the baseball team, which had its own weight-lifting facility and plenty of Division I recruits. A well-organized youth system and much more pleasant spring weather resulted in a level of competition Rash had not seen in Iowa. The summer after his junior year at Pelham, Rash’s father returned to Iowa for work. It’s always difficult to pack up and leave during high school, and Lora expressed regret at taking Alec away from his friends in Adel. Rash rejoined his father in Iowa and re-enrolled for his senior year at A-D-M, joining the friends he said goodbye to a summer ago. His mother moved back last winter. Rash visited LSU, Mississippi State, Alabama and Auburn before committing last summer to Missouri. The desire to return to the Midwest was too much to resist, he said. “I knew I was kind of a Midwest kid, and I wanted to play in the Midwest, playing against those kids at their colleges,” he said. Ironically, less than a week after his commitment, rumors began to surface that Missouri was leaving for the SEC, a move Rash said did not bother him. Back in Adel for his senior year, Rash helped the Tigers’ football team to the state semifinals by catching 35 passes for 500 yards and four touchdowns. Last winter, he led the basketball team to the state tournament, averaging 13 points and five rebounds per game. Now, the focus is on baseball, while the sport awaits June 4, the start of MLB’s annual amateur draft. Rash could be drafted in the first round, and he could go undrafted. In the world of baseball business, and under a new collective bargaining agreement agreed upon last fall, Rash’s being drafted is not a given. In the past, MLB gave recommendations on the size of signing bonuses teams could offer draft picks, a suggestion teams freely ignored in pursuit of the sport’s big fish. Beginning this year, teams have a limited pool of money to spend on draftees in the first 10 rounds. If they exceed that limit, they could be penalized either by monetary fines or the loss of future draft picks. It remains to be seen how that will affect the draft next month, but it seems likely that it will be more difficult for teams to offer top players like Rash, who have desirable college scholarships waiting, enough money to skip college and enter the professional ranks. The money Rash would potentially sign for, which he did not disclose, is based on a variety of factors, including the drafting team’s history with development of right-handed pitchers. It might not be the same amount for every team, he said. And if he isn’t drafted, then a college scholarship at a solid baseball school awaits. He would finish the season at A-D-M and then enroll. He’d be able to graduate in three years and would be eligible for the 2015 draft. “Either decision for me is going to be a great opportunity,” Rash said. “Basically what it comes down to is if the situation is right for my parents and right for me, and whichever opportunity is going to make me better, then that’s the one I’m going to go with. “I’m extremely blessed, and I just love that I get this opportunity.”

Area teams follow road to state

sam — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:45:32 +0000

Earlham girls’ regional track championship nets 12 state qualifiers By Sam Martin Sports Editor The Earlham girls’ track team won its Class 1A regional meet in Van Meter on May 11 and in the process qualified 12 events for this week’s state track meet in Des Moines. The Cardinal girls amassed 177 team points to stride past the host Bulldogs, who finished with 126 points. Woodward-Granger was fourth with 77 points. Six of Earlham’s dozen qualifying events came in relays. The sprint medley team of Elizabeth Bower, Hanna Feller, Dani Rice and Abbey Murphy recorded the eighth-best qualifying time in Class 1A in 1 minute, 54.98 seconds. The 4x800 team of Emily Wisecup, Hannah Murphy, Kristen Weber and Abbey Murphy was also eighth in 10:11.41. The Cardinals also qualified in the shuttle hurdle (Ari Brightman, Bower, Tabitha Payne, Dani Rice in 1:09.64), the 4x100 (Bower, Feller, Brightman, Rice in 52.67), 4x400 (Morris, Hannah Murphy, Addie Herman, Abbey Murphy in 4:15.86), and distance medley (Brightman, Herman, Abbey Murphy, Weber in 4:30.06). Individual events also proved to be a boon for the team. Amy Wright, who was a state champion in the 2010 discus competition, qualified second in the event this season with a throw of 117 feet, 8 inches. She’s also sixth in the shot put, posting 37-7 1/2. Tess Ory cleared 5-3 to qualify fourth in the high jump, while Rice’s 16.05 in the 100 hurdles is good for fourth as well. Weber enters the 1,500 after running the fifth best time of 5:10.14, and Morris will compete in the long jump competition after jumping 16-0. Van Meter was led by sophomore Katie Agey, who qualified in the 100, 200 and 400. She also anchored the sprint medley team (Dani Hubbard, Makaela Jimmerson, Aspen Rhodes) to the sixth-fastest time in Class 1A, crossing the line in 1:54.63. The 4x100 foursome of Hubbard, Cara Setsodi, Jimmerson and Rhodes also qualified in 53.09. [gallery] Hubbard broke through in the 100 hurdles, grabbing the 23rd spot with a time of 16.81 seconds. Rhodes leaped 16-11 1/2 to qualify fourth in the long jump, and freshman Nicole Meyer will make her state debut in the high jump after clearing 4-10. The Hawks’ Haley Manning, who ran a 2:17.93 in the 800 earlier this season, qualified easily in the event with a time of 2:30.59. She also ran the opening leg of W-G’s qualifying 4x200 team (Abby Musser, Sydney Crnkovich, Maddie Bardole in 1:51.24), and joined the same three girls in the distance medley, anchoring and posting the fourth-best qualifying time, 4:24.17, and the eighth best time in the 4x400, in 4:12.19. Grace Wilkinson (34-4 3/4) qualified in the shot put, while Ariel Charter nabbed a spot in the long jump after clearing 15-9 1/2. West Central Valley will be represented in the Class 2A meet by Olivia McAtee, who is seeded ninth in the long jump with a leap of 16-8 1/2. Boys’ division A second-place showing by the Earlham boys resulted in 10 state qualifiers in nine events, as they finished with 96 points, behind Madrid’s 159. The shuttle hurdle team of Travis Potzner, Zach Rice, Spencer Faust and Brett Tomlinson turned in a time of 1:00.07, second in the state only to Madrid. The distance medley team of Potzner, Brendon McGinnis, Matt Mankin and Alex Wetrich was third in 3:44.27, and the 4x100 team of Potzner, McGinnis, Tyler Book and Tomlinson was fourth overall in 44.69. Also qualifying were the Cardinals’ 4x400 team (Wetrich, Rice, Book, Mankin, fifth in 3:32.25), the 4x800 team (Book, Travis Herman, Mankin, Wetrich, eighth in 8:29.36) and the 4x200 team (Potzner, McGinnis, Wetrich, Book, 11th in 1:34.10). Both Tomlinson and Rice will compete in the 110 high hurdles, and Tomlinson also qualified 12th in the 200 with a time of 23.26. McGinnis will also participate in the long jump after leaping 20-5 1/2 to qualify. Van Meter qualified four events, three of which are relays. The 4x800 team of Tyler Reicks, Grant Hoppes, David McQuiston and Brett Powers qualified fourth overall in 8:25.06. Justin Sacker, Powers, Brennan Dostal and Reicks were sixth in the 4x400 (3:32.75), and the 4x200 team of Jeremy Helmick, Dostal, Reicks and Sacker also qualified in 1:35.27. Sacker, a junior, will also compete in the 400 hurdles after qualifying 12th with a time of 56.75. The W-G boys will be represented by junior Andrew McCune, who qualified for the shot put competition after throwing 47-2. West Central Valley’s Mitch Kearns will participate in the Class 2A shot put competition.

Waukee golfers shatter school, CIML records

sam — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:45:10 +0000

Staff Report The Waukee girls’ golf team completed a perfect regular season by winning the CIML Iowa Conference meet by a conference-record 89 strokes on Tuesday. The victory, at Mason - Continue reading...

Warrior track teams win titles, advance to state meet

sam — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:44:39 +0000

By Sam Martin Sports Editor The Warriors were comfortable at home in their Class 4A state-qualifying meet at Waukee Stadium on May 10 and it showed. But the boys’ and - Continue reading...

DC-G, A-D-M pile up state track qualifiers at Grimes

sam — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:44:13 +0000

Staff Report Miranda Fullerton and Madison Waymire each won four first-place medals to help Dallas Center-Grimes to a second-place finish at the state-qualifying meet in Grimes on May 10. The - Continue reading...

Tigers wrap up regular season with two victories

sam — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:43:49 +0000

Staff Report The A-D-M boys’ soccer team ended the regular season 14-4 with a pair of victories. The Tigers received a first-round bye in the Class 2A Substate 8 bracket - Continue reading...

W-G boys advance to districts with second-place finish at sectionals

sam — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:43:23 +0000

Staff Report The Woodward-Granger boys’ golf team finished second at its Class 1A sectional golf meet on May 11 in Greenfield. The Hawks were led by a meet-best 75 from - Continue reading...

DC-G boys to wrap up regular season Thursday

sam — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:43:02 +0000

Staff Report Dallas Center-Grimes will take an 11-2 record into its season finale on Thursday at Gilbert. The Mustangs received a first-round bye and will face either Grinnell or South - Continue reading...

Team district title sends A-D-M girls to regionals

sam — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:42:41 +0000

Staff Report Behind a pair of top-four finishes by Megan Ticknor and Lauren Bever, the A-D-M girls’ golf team clinched a spot in the regional meet on May 21 with - Continue reading...

Fillies win streak reaches nine

sam — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:42:07 +0000

Staff Report The Dallas Center-Grimes girls’ soccer team pushed its season record to 12-1 and extended its winning streak to nine matches with a trio of victories in recent action. - Continue reading...