By BRETT MARSHALL
Western Athletic Conference
Sometimes good things happen when one least expects it.
Sometimes, good things turn into great things. And in the case of high school sports, great things turn into great seasons that will remain memorable for a lifetime.
That might be one way to describe the 2021 spring baseball season for Hays High’s Dylan Dreiling and his Indians’ diamond teammates.
“I think coming into this year, we didn’t expect to be as good as we eventually were,” said Dreiling, a junior pitcher/outfielder who was voted the Western Athletic Conference Baseball Player of the Year by the league’s coaches. “Not having last season I don’t think affected us, and I think in some cases made us play better.”
Two seasons earlier, Dreiling was making his high school debut with the Indians. The team missed the postseason run to a state tournament berth in Class 5A, but Dreiling had his summer baseball team to fall back on when he left for the east coast to play with the elite Tri-State Arsenal team.
“The big thing about this season is that after missing one year, you only have four years of high school so losing one whole year makes you appreciate it just a little more,” said Dreiling.
And the 5-11, 195-pound junior did make the most of his return to playing with his hometown friends.
In a season in which the Indians finished 19-4 overall and placed third in Class 5A at the state tournament, Dreiling was nearly perfect on the mound.
Dreiling fashioned an unbeaten 9-0 record while posting a scintillating 0.52 earned-run-average. Those two marks established new school records for a single season.
“I think I’m mainly just very competitive,” Dreiling said when talking about his strengths. “First, I’ll try to throw the fastball, but I also have my change-up, which is usually pretty good. Every once in a while, I’ll throw in a curve.”
The numbers tell the story of a dominant season for Dreiling, both from his left-handed pitching gems, to his range of hitting exploits.
He went to the plate for 86 official at-bats, collecting 37 hits. He had seven doubles, three triples and three home runs to add to his 24 singles. In the 23 games played, he recorded 26 RBIs and scored 29 runs. He struck out only 2 times and also added 11 stolen bases to his resume.
In recent years, the change-up has been his go-to pitch, estimating that it comes in at about 72 mph while he has been clocked at about 88 mph for his fastball.
In his pitching performances, Dreiling threw 54 innings, giving up just 21 hits, six runs of which only four were earned. He walked 23 and struck out 94, a high-end 1.74 strikeouts per inning.
“My curve? I have no clue on that one,” Dreiling said. “Still working on getting that to be a better pitch.”
From the end of the fall football season, Dreiling had spent many days in the weight room, working on getting stronger while also adding weight to his frame. The hard work paid off, as he went from 175 pounds to about the 195-200 pound range.
“I’ve always been pretty fast, but I thought if I could add the weight, I’d be that much stronger and could throw harder,” Dreiling said. “At the same time, I worked hard to keep up my speed.”
That transitions into his playing centerfield when not on the mound. This season, Dreiling hit a rock-solid .427 that helped the Indians’ high-scoring offense produce many double-digit run outings.
But he thrives on the defensive aspect of playing centerfield.
“I just like playing there because I have control of the outfield and the infield on fly balls,” he said. “The game has kind of gone away from defense, so for me, I just try to make the plays and have a good glove.”
Most centerfielders exhibit the skills of running to both their left and right, going back deep on fly balls or scampering in to grab line drives or hard ground balls into the outfield.
“I’m probably best at coming in on line drives,” Dreiling said. “It allows me to use my arm to keep runners from advancing.”
This summer, now that the spring season is over, will once again see Dreiling head east to play with the updated version of Tri-State Arsenal, now called G-Form Artillery.
“It’s a really good team with players from all over and we play a lot of tournaments up and down the East Coast,” Dreiling said. “I’ve been doing this since the fall of my eighth grade year when I played on a KC team and pitched six and two-thirds inning of no-hits. One of the kids from the other team played on an older team and he asked me if I was interested. I’ve been playing with them ever since.”
When he home for a short break in the summer, you will find Dreiling suited up to play for the local semi-pro team, the Hays Larks. But it doesn’t replace the bond he has with his high school teammates, and sometimes he longs to have more time to be in the dugout, or on the field with them.
“Those are the guys I grew up with, and there is just an extra-something special about playing high school baseball,” Dreiling said. “I have created new friendships with the team back east, but it doesn’t have the same feel as when I’m playing here at home.”
When he was notified about the WAC Player of the Year award, Dreiling said he was both excited and surprised.
“You know, we didn’t win league (6-2 while Dodge City was 7-1), so I thought that somebody from Dodge City might win it,” Dreiling said. “We struggled a little in the early part of the season and lost a game or two that perhaps we could have won. But overall it was a really good season and we played our best ball at the end.”
When the Indians punched their ticket to the state tournament at Eck Stadium on the campus of Wichita State University, Dreiling was excited for the opportunity.
“It’s a great stadium to play in and I am so happy we played there,” he said. “It was a big goal for me to play there with my friends. I don’t get to play with them in the summer, so it was very special.”
Dodge City head coach Zach Shipley was recognized as the WAC Coach of the Year for guiding the Red Demons to the league title.
