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BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
The Rochester baseball team poses in front of the The Times Theater marquee with the sectional and regional trophies Wednesday. The regional title is their first in school history. Rochester will play Westview at 2 p.m. today at Oak Hill in a Class 2A semistate semifinal. (photos provided by Jenny Steininger)
It’s 4:45 p.m. on a weekday afternoon in May in the middle of high school baseball season.
Rochester coach Cory Good is running practice, but he also knows his child’s T-ball game is coming up at 5:15 p.m.
Good knows that he can leave practice early to attend the T-ball game.
And the genesis of the reason why goes back to realizing he had to delegate responsibility to his assistants.
Now he and his small army of assistants have achieved more than any other Rochester baseball team, winning the school’s first regional title in school history against Benton Central last week.
And as they posed for photos with the trophy, seniors Jake Seuferer and Brady Beck surprised him from behind by dumping a cool ice bucket on his back.
Next up is a Class 2A semistate semifinal against Westview at 2 p.m. today at Oak Hill. The winner will play either Madison-Grant or Illiana Christian at 8 p.m. in the final.
“That’s something I’ve tried to do a lot better job of in probably the last three years… now that I think about it after COVID,” Good said. “Having kids and being more involved at The Winning Edge (the Rochester business that Good owns), I’ve had to try to delegate a lot more. I had conversations with admin and people just to make sure that they were supportive of the position that I was coming from and wanting to spend time with my family and my kids getting involved in sports, I really divvied up a lot.”
Good has also made changes to how he delegates responsibilities within games, and he said that helps tactically. Assistant Jeff Himes has taken over as third base coach this year with Good staying in the dugout when the Zebras bat.
“Obviously, I went in the dugout this year instead of being on third base, and I think that just gives me a little more clarity to the game and better in-game management,” Good said. “If you think about it, every time we play, 99% of the time, I’m on the other side of the field from my team for half the game. And it got tough to manage when you’re talking about an inning or two ahead and then running across the field and getting caught up in that, that was one thing that I think helped me.”
As for the division of labor, Todd Beehler and Bryan Holcomb work with pitchers. Himes and Jakob Good work with the outfielders. T.J. Smith, Brent Easterday, Dave Baillieul and Good work with infielders.
“So we kind of delegate that up a little bit,” Good said. “We’ve been together for so long. I’ve got more than enough confidence in those guys to trust their opinions or what they saw today or what they didn’t see today. There are not many times we come together about … problems or lineup discussions or defensive discussions that we’re not really close to being on the same page. So that’s gotten a lot better with just divvying things up, and coach Baillieul takes over the weight room. If I need to leave at 4:45 for a 5:15 T-ball game, I know I can leave and not have any worries that things are going to get put up and doors are going to be locked and everything’s going to get done the right way.
“We’ve really, I felt, put together a really good staff that just gets along really well and can really get all on the same page together.”
Rochester baseball team seniors pose on top of The Times Theater marquee Wednesday to celebrate their regional title. Rochester beat Benton Central 7-4 at Loeb Stadium in Lafayette to win the regional on June 1. They will play Westview at Oak Hill in a Class 2A semistate semifinal at 2 p.m. today. The winner returns at 8 p.m. for the final. From left – Gavin Young, Jake Seuferer, Kaleb Lutz, Wes Steininger, Brady Beck. (photos provided by Jenny Steininger)
