Lehman High School baseball aims high ahead of new season

KYLE — The Lehman High School varsity baseball team is swinging for the fences as the players look ahead to their upcoming season.

The program has surpassed adversity to put itself close to making it to the playoffs the last two seasons. The team still managed to break school records, as it ended the 2022-23 season with the most wins in a season at 19. And for the upcoming 2023-24 season, the players and head coach Jacob Kaase are on the hunt for playoffs for the first time in 10 years.

Kaase is not unfamiliar with the player side of the sport, as he was a two-sport athlete in high school, playing on both the baseball and football teams. When it came time to choose which path he would take following high school, he chose baseball, landing him at Texas Lutheran University (TLU) for three years. He helped the Bulldogs to three consecutive American Southwest Conference Championships — and he was also inducted into the TLU Athletic Hall of Fame in 2022.

Following his junior year as a Co-Most Valuable Player at TLU, Kaase was drafted by the Texas Rangers — a team that just won its first World Series title earlier this year. He played four seasons in the organization and appeared in 306 career minor league games, according to TLU. At the end of his baseball career, he went back to TLU to finish his degree and graduated in 2012.

Kaase became the varsity assistant for the Lehman High School baseball team in 2018 and then, in 2021, he took over the program. He said that when he was 14 years old, he knew that he wanted to become a high school baseball coach and math teacher, a dream that came true at 29 years old.

“Just going from a player to a coach is a big transition in itself and there's a lot of people that really struggle with it. Doing something and teaching something are two completely different things. I feel that, just because I played at such a high level, going back to the high school level was really a hard transition,” he said. “I had to really work on simplifying concepts, terms and philosophies for the high school athletes to really understand and comprehend.”

For Kaase, coaching the players goes beyond baseball.

“When you're able to teach somebody something —anything in life [and] not just baseball — when you are able to connect with them, get them to buy into what you are teaching them, build a relationship with them [and] watch them become successful, it's an even greater joy than doing this myself,” he explained. “That's a big part of why I do what I do. Not just on the baseball field, but watching them grow into men, to be leaders in the community and their homes and to be good husbands [and] good fathers. All of those types of things they can learn from baseball.”

While some may consider the Lehman High School varsity baseball players to be underdogs, Kaase said that it’s all about perspective and they will use that as an advantage rather than a disadvantage.

Kaase took over a program that had seven consecutive winning seasons and he’s been consistently trying to build that back up.

“Our first season was a losing season and the next season was the first winning season and we missed the playoffs by half a game. My third season, which was last season, we went on a 11-game winning streak to start off the year and broke the school record for the number of wins in a season,” he said. “We missed the playoffs again. I think a lot of credit goes to the kids for buying in or answering the call to the best of their ability and just continuing to grow. And that kind of leads us to, hopefully for the first time in years, punching a playoff ticket.”

This team is also unique for Kaase as the group of varsity seniors is his first set of players, meaning that he has coached the majority of them for all four years.

“It’s a blessing to watch them … It’s a joy because when they get to me, they are 14 years old thinking they are on top of the world,” Kaase said. “You have to balance bringing them down to earth, but also building them up and growing their mental toughness.”

Andrew Cruz, a junior on the team, started playing baseball when he was around 3 or 4 years old. He explained that being coached by Kaase has been a great experience for the past three years, as “not once has he ever talked down to people” and “he definitely has had an impact on the Lehman baseball team ever since he has been there.”

For Pete Cienaga, one of the varsity seniors, being able to play baseball at Lehman High School has taught him how to deal with failure and overcome issues. He said that he has loved working with coach Kaase because “he coaches us up from the fundamentals from very basic stuff to help us be better with our performance.”

Both Cruz and Cienaga are hoping that they can help their team get to the playoffs for the 2023-24 season.

Community support

How a team performs in a game — whether it be baseball or another sport — can be determined by the support that the players receive and how many fans show up in the bleachers.

Coach Kaase spoke about what it means for the players to put on the jersey before each game, but also what it means for the players to know that the community will stand by them every step of the way.

“I talk to the boys a lot about what it means to wear this jersey [and] to wear a jersey that says Lehman on the front. They're playing for something bigger than themselves. They're playing for their family. They're playing for the school. They are playing for this community,” Kaase said. “I talk to them a lot about what that means as far as making a mark and leaving a legacy behind. It's just part of the brand … We go on and play opponents, win or lose, regardless of the results, we want that opponent to remember the day they played the Lobos — how we played, that we didn’t quit and we kept hunting for victory.”

“We want the community to be able to get behind this and know that how we play, and how we go about our business, is a reflection on this community,” he added. “[We are] trying to build a tradition of success here at Lehman High School.”

On Tuesday, Nov. 14, the Lehman High School baseball and softball teams helped the Hays County Food Bank serve Holiday Meal Boxes to families in need. Cruz, one of the players who volunteered, said that the team will continue to help the community “that will [help] get our name out there.”

New facility in the works

While working to make it to the playoffs is at the forefront of coach Kaase and his players’ minds, they are also looking forward to the construction of a new facility that will house the Lehman High School baseball and softball venues with dugouts, batting cages, a press box, concrete sidewalks and a restroom/concessions building.

The current facilities were constructed in 2004, when the campus opened. The proposition for this project was on the 2023 bond — the cost is estimated at $5,374,337 — because it had previously failed to pass in the 2021 bond, and it was placed on a bond for a second time earlier this year as a matter of equity, according to Hays CISD Chief Communication Officer Tim Savoy.

“Johnson High School, which opened in 2019, was constructed with new equivalent facilities. A recent bond in 2017 passed for an upgrade at the Hays High School baseball and softball venues,” Savoy explained. “This left the Lehman facilities in need of an upgrade. In the 2017 bond for the Hays High School baseball and softball upgrades, Lehman got new bleachers and a press box at the main stadium and a new CTE auto and vet tech building.”

Savoy added that the district decided to install turf, rather than continuing with grass, on the upgraded fields in the district because of increasing water restrictions, droughts in the area and the inability to maintain grass for playing surfaces.

Construction is underway and, in order to do what is best for the kids, Savoy said that the district has worked out an expedited construction schedule with the contractors to finish at least the field before district games begin after spring break in 2024.

“This will likely require some preseason games to be played away, but the entire season, specifically district competition, won’t have to,” Savoy said. “We have since been able to get a commitment from the construction teams that they will be able to complete the playing surface by early March 2024 and finish the remaining venue items by about the third week in March.”

The parents of the Lehman High School baseball team are slated to host an event on April 6, 2024, to present the new complex to the community, as well as a spring fundraiser for the team. According to Tiffany Roberts, point of contact for the players’ parents, they will be creating a “Day at the Ballpark” with ballpark foods, vendors, lots of games and prizes, performances, batting practice, a home run derby, local mascots from around the community competing in fun activities and more.

To stay up-to-date on the team, visit bit.ly/4aafycO.