'We wanted to leave our mark this year'

FINDLAY – It doesn't feel real to Liberty-Benton's baseball players.Not yet, anyway.The Eagles were perfect in the Blanchard Valley Conference this season, winning the outright league for the sixth consecutive year.It will be the program's last.When the 2026-27 school year opens, Liberty-Benton is leaving behind the conference that has been its home for the past 61 years. Next season, the Eagles will become the new kids on the block in the Northern Lakes League Cardinal Division. "It probably won't hit us until next year," L-B baseball coach Matt Rader said. "I think it will be more special to us going into that new league. We have been in the BVC for a long time." The Eagles will be joining Oregon Clay, Fremont Ross, Bowling Green, Sylvania Southview, Springfield, and Napoleon. A charter member since the BVC was formed in 1965, L-B won its last BVC title with a perfect 10-0 conference record this past season. The Eagls overall record is 16-5, and they will be hosting No. 7 seeded Bluffton in Division V sectionals at noon today. L-B is the district's No. 2 seed coming into this afternoon's game. "It's been 54 games since we had lost a (BVC) game," senior outfielder Reid Irwin said. "We wanted to leave our mark this year and make sure that everyone remembered L-B. That's what we did and we got it done."For senior third baseman Zach Elchert, who came back from injury that he sustained during football season, there was another reason to be motivated. "We didn't want to be the disappointing class," he said. "In the last five or six years, we haven't lost a game and we didn't want to be the class that goes out on a low note and we had to make sure we didn't overlook anything."The Eagles are going out on a high note.But that doesn't mean there haven't been challenges. L-B lost Seth Elchert – Zach's twin and a standout on last year's team -- to early graduation and enrollment at the University of Toledo. "Seth would have been a big piece for us this year," Rader said. "But we know that he has moved on to do greater things."Zach Elchert had a rough go of it during preseason, but was persistent and determined. He still led the league in home runs with five, and is third in the BVC with 27 RBIs. He is also fifth in runs scored with 28. "With Zach, he has been playing really good baseball for a really long time," Rader said. "He doesn't get talked about a lot; he has also had 16 hit by pitches and is so unselfish."While L-B has eight seniors, when it comes to leadership, Elchert and Irwin stand out the most to Rader. "They don't like to talk about themselves a lot," Rader said. "With Reid, he isn't the flashiest baseball player and isn't going to hit home runs, but he will compete. We could be down 20 runs and he is the one that you will go to war with and those two are the absolute leaders of the team."Leading L-B's pitching staff is Jackson Knepper, who has a record of 8-0. "Anytime we have called on him, he has gotten the job done," Rader said. Rader said the biggest key to another strong year has been the senior class, which has become something of a tradition in the program. This year's seniors embraced that tradition. "The upper classmen before us showed us how things should be handled," Irwin said. "They taught us how not to overlook the simple things." "We lost a lot last year. We have a lot of our team stepping up and into roles this year. They have done a great job, and hopefully they continue to step up as we head into the tournaments." The team has to get through the Pirates (3-12-1) today to keep its season going, and advance to next week's district semifinal. "It's hard to tell who we will play," Rader said. "Anyone can beat anyone on any given day. We have to get through Bluffton first and see who settles in where."