If you know anything about Nebraska high school baseball, you have heard about head coach Steve Frey and Millard West. With appearances in the Class A State Championship the past five years, the Wildcats have been dominant on the field for as long as most people can remember, and aren’t looking to let up in the 2025 season.
Coming out of the 2024 season as state champions, the returning team knows what it’s like to win, but with losses of key players like Cincinnati Reds draft pick Tyson Lewis, Creighton commit Nick Venteicher, and more, the now-seniors have to help introduce the younger players to the “Gold Standard.” With his four years of high school spent on the varsity squad, senior Brady Ferguson has grown through tons of highs and lows, and now leads the team throughout his last season as a Wildcat.
“It is hard to fill the roles we lost, but the newer kids are doing a good job adapting to it,” Ferguson said. “I realized it is just extremely important to me to lead by example to the younger guys who have never played this level of baseball before. It was nice to have boys like that when I was an underclassman, and I want to do the same for them.”
Apart from Ferguson, the other half of the battery is senior catcher Samuel Kidd. As the only player who can see the entire field and has to use his voice to guide people in every position, Kidd knows how important his leadership is to the success of his team.
“Nothing is given to us in this sport, and if you want to win, you need to go out and work hard every day to earn it,” Kidd said. “I can see the dudes starting to compete now, and starting to play more for the team and not for ourselves.”
Baseball is a game of learning from your mistakes and building from the tough times. Beginning the season rough, with a few close losses, the team and coaches knew that something would need to change to remain successful. The Wildcats have been known for never backing down and working with the coaching staff to bounce back in difficult situations.
“We talk a lot about attention to detail, not only trying to make very rep important, but also just in their everyday life, and we try to model it ourselves as coaches,” Frey said. “The players need to understand that if we are tough on them, it is because we have high expectations for them, and want them to perform at their best.”
The team has had a tough schedule to start off the season and sits at a 7-8. Focusing more now on making sure to play as a team and not selfishly, and wanting to do the best for each other. With their next match up against Westside, who they fell to earlier in the season, to start the Metro Tournament, the Wildcats plan to come out strongly.
