Perry, Jones earn All-state for Panthers
BENTON – In a season which saw a 14-game win streak to start and ended in the 5A State Tournament quarterfinals, the Benton Panthers received postseason honors. Two Panthers, senior Ethan Perry and
Jake Jones, took All-state accolades, with that duo and five other Benton baseballers taking Allconference.
Perry was a force at the plate this season, leading the Panthers in hits (34), runs (26) and tied for the team lead in home runs (2) while knocking in 17 with six doubles, a triple and nine stolen bases, while batting .337, which was second on the squad.
“The first 15 games he was batting like .600,” Benton longtime Coach Mark Balisterri said. “His batting average went down, but he never quit hitting the ball. He only struck out 10 times. He only struck out 19 times in two full years in 233 at-bats, or something like that. He had a heck of a career.
“The only downfall of his senior year is he couldn’t pitch the last half of the season because he had some arm issues.”
Perry was also excellent on the mound when healthy, going 2-1 with an 0.67 ERA, striking out 21 in 21 innings pitched.
“He was a rock,” Balisterri said. “He was that guy that can play any position. He was solid all year long. He’s gotten well and he’s going to have a chance of doing good things at
Rich Mountain.”
Jones had an excellent junior season. He went 5-0 on the mound with a 1.01 ERA, striking out 82 in 48.1 innings. Jones allowed just 15 hits all season, sporting an 0.87 WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched).
“Jake had one of those years,” Balisterri said. “He was phenomenal on the mound. His stats were just amazing. He had 80-plus strikeouts, which is a huge number of strikeouts. I was looking back at when Drew Harris (former Panther All-stater) was pitching for us and he was dominant all year and he only had 60-something strikeouts. For a guy to have 80-plus strikeouts in less innings … he was dominant on the mound.”
Jones showed his dominance late in the season as he shut the Greenbrier Panthers down in the first round of the state playoffs. Jones allowed just one hit and no walks, striking out 14 in seven shutout innings.
“He got better as the year went on,” the Coach
said. “He pitched his best game in the state tournament. If you could choose a time to do it, that’s the time.”
Not only was Jones dominant on the mound, but he was also a force at the plate, especially late, batting .322 for the season and leading the team with eight doubles, 20 RBIS, 21 walks with a .451 on-base percentage.
“He pretty much ended up being our leader at the plate,” Balisterri said. “He was one of the guys whose hitting got better as the year went on. He didn’t start out on fire, but he ended up being a big force in our lineup.
“We’re super pumped to have him back, not only for pitching, but what he can do offensively and defensively. You just got to have that guy on the field. He’s a gamer, a competitor, a leader. When he got recruited by UCA, I told them, ‘He’s like a bulldog,’ and that’s what he is, just a bulldog.”
While Balisterri would be ecstatic with Jones replicating his junior year, the coach said his senior-to-be was not.
“I told Jake in our exit meeting, ‘If you can just repeat your junior season, you’re going to be phenomenal,’” Balisterri explained. “He said, ‘No coach, I want to be better.’ He’s a gamer and I’m glad we’ve got him back again.”
Taking All-conference for Benton were juniors Brooks Lane and Caiden Phillips, senior Jackson Cobb and sophomore Dalton Adair, with junior Logan Hope getting All-conference Honorable Mention.
Lane was Mr. Consistent for the Panthers this year, leading the way with a .350 average, .454 OBP and 11 stolen bases. He added four doubles, a triple, 18 runs and 19 RBIS, which was second on the team.
“Brooks was that steady guy in our lineup,” Balisterri said. “If I had to use a word to characterize Brooks is a guy who’s consistent. We knew what we were going to get from him every day, we knew he was going play solid defense, we knew he was going to go up to the plate and compete offensively. He’s well deserving of Allconference.”
Phillips would bat .303 for the Panthers, adding a double, two triples and two home runs, scoring 23 times and knocking in 15. He added six stolen bases.
“Caiden Phillips had a really good year,” Balisterri said. “The biggest thing with Caiden was he was a little bit inconsistent at the plate … he was one of our leading guys with RBIS, had some really big hits for us, but he would struggle sometimes. He swung and missed a lot. He led us in strikeouts, but he was a guy we had to have in the lineup every day. He was a guy who played really good defense. He was fast.”
Balisterri is convinced Phillips will get more consistent now that he has a full season under his belt.
“I look at the struggles that he had and he didn’t play his freshman year, he ran track,” the Coach said. “He came out his sophomore year and got hurt and didn’t play any. Last year was his first season to even play baseball in three years. Anything he struggled on, he’s going to be way better because he had a full spring and summer in his back pocket he didn’t have in awhile.”
After being shelved due to injury most of last year, the catcher Cobb provided leadership behind he plate his senior season while batting .263 with six doubles, two triples, a homer and 16 RBIS. He will be playing at SAU Tech next season.
“He was a leader for us, did a great job behind the plate, handled our pitchers well,” Balisterri said of his catcher. “Just a pure leader. He came to practice every day and you always have one of those guys every year that makes a team go one way or the other, and he was that guy. When Jackson was feeling it, everyone else was feeling it. When Jackson wasn’t having a good day, it was like our whole team didn’t have a good day. That’s a credit to him and his work ethic.”
The sophomore Adair came out of the blue for the Panthers on the mound.
He led the team with 56 innings pitched, tied Jones with a 5-0 record, sported a 1.88 ERA and struck out 80 in those 56 frames.
“What a year he had,” Balisterri said of Adair.
“He came out of nowhere for us. He was a guy we thought … Coach (Drew) Harris thought he could eat up some innings for us because he threw strikes. His velo(city) went from 78 (MPH), 79 to 84,86. He had a solid three pitches and could command both sides of the plate and use his changeup, too. He became, I would say, a top two sophomore in the state. We’re looking big-time forward to having him back, too.” Hope helped the Panthers both at the plate and on the mound. He batted .259 with 16 runs and 15 RBIS, while going 1-2 with a 1.45 ERA on the mound, striking out 26 in 19.1 innings pitched.
“Logan was another surprise guy,” Balisterri said. “We didn’t really know he was going to be our shortstop, and we sure didn’t know he was going to be pumping it in there at 87,
89, on the bump. He did a lot of good things for us. He was the best athlete on the team. We’re excited to have him back, too.”
The future looks bright for Benton. Though losing seniors Perry, Cobb, Andrew Armstrong, Austin Phillips and Dawson
Turner, the Panthers have plenty of experience returning, including practically all their pitchers.
Not only do Jones and Adair return, junior Seth Mejia, missing out on Allconference after going 2-0 with an 0.83 ERA and 38 strikeouts in 33.2 innings, also returns.
“You throw Seth Mejia in there, Logan Hope, Dalton, Jake … we didn’t really lose any pitching that pitched a whole lot,” Balisterri said. “We feel like we pretty much have our whole pitching staff back. We have our whole infield back. We’ll have to replace our catcher and centerfielder, and another outfielder, we feel real good at where we’re at and what we’ve got coming back.”
Finishing 22-9 overall this past year, the Panthers were practically in every game. Balisterri said his seniors were a big factor in Benton’s success.
“It’s a credit to these seniors this year,” he said. “All of our seniors were leaders. They bought in to some new things we did. When you go back and look at the season, we started out 14-0 and then we struggled a little bit, but we lost 7 of our 9 games by one run. With a little bit of luck here and there, it could have been even more special.
“These seniors are going to be remembered as the group that bought in to what we tried to do when we tried to when we tried to do some things different. They made our program better.”*