With a roster full of multisport athletes, Southeast hopes to turn athletic potential into wins | High School Baseball

Whether teams possess dominant pitching, powerful hitting or all-around defensive strength, there are many winning formulas in high school baseball.

The Lincoln Southeast Knights might have found their own formula — speed and athleticism. This year’s Southeast baseball team is loaded with multisport athletes, with 10 of the team’s 20 varsity players also participating in varsity football during the fall.

Since head coach Montana Jones also serves as an assistant coach for Southeast’s varsity football team, he’s seen firsthand how competing in multiple sports can help players conquer adversity.

“Southeast has always prided itself on the tradition of multisport athletes, and it’s been that way for a long, long time,” Jones said. “I obviously want the baseball guys to play football because they get to compete in different avenues, which helps your mental toughness.”

Some of the standouts crossing over from the gridiron to the baseball diamond include senior quarterback Willem Reddick, leading wide receiver Will Barrett, leading tackler Will Jesske and tight end/defensive end Luke Blatchford.

Even the Knights’ leading rusher in the fall, junior Max Buettenback, will also lead the team’s offensive charge this spring. A first-team Super-State selection a year ago after hitting over .450, Buettenback is a Nebraska baseball recruit who is always a tough out for opposing pitchers.

When he roams the outfield while not at the plate, Buettenback will do so along another future Husker, albeit in a different sport — senior Jake Appleget. An NU football commit, Appleget hadn’t played baseball since his freshman season before rejoining the team this year. After getting his first hit in nearly three years last week, it’s clear that some of Appleget’s old skills are coming back to him.

“He’s probably one of the best athletes we’ve had come through Southeast,” Jones said. “He was going to have his growing pains a little bit getting back into it, but defensively he’s done really well and continued to work hard.”

With a focus on team baseball, speed on the basepaths and smart at-bats offensively, Southeast is going to rely on its pitching to keep it competitive this year. The vast majority of the Knights’ roster will contribute on the mound after many players gained experience late in the 2021 spring season or in summer American Legion baseball.

There might not be a true ace who is head and shoulders above the rest of the rotation, but Southeast’s depth will help it battle through busy stretches, such as it when it plays four games in five days next week.

“We have a lot better depth this year; some of those sophomores last year who are now juniors got their feet wet, so the nerves are out of the way at this point,” Jones said.

As the most storied baseball program in the city, expectations at Southeast always center around the postseason. After making the state tournament four seasons in a row from 2015-18, Southeast hasn’t been back since.

Such goals are a long way away, but Jones is confident of one thing — the pure potential among his group of multi-sport athletes should keep the Knights competitive throughout the season so long as they follow the team’s new motto.

“It’s called the 1% rule — everybody gets 1% better every day,” Jones said. “Our big thing is just winning the day because we don’t make it about anybody else; we make it about ourselves.”