Armed and Dangerous

Great Pitching, Led by Lichnovksy, Reeves and Brenek, Has Shorthorns Surging

The Schulenburg baseball team is among the hottest in the state right, now.

The Shorthorns are 16-3 and won their 13th consecutive game Tuesday in a 10-0 dismantling of Louise.

All this is coming on the heels of a season last year when the Shorthorns went all the way to the state semifinals.

A big key to that success has been the depth of the Shorthorns pitching staff.

Schulenburg hasn’t allowed more than two runs in a game in three weeks.

That dominance on the mound was on display again Tuesday as Ian Reeves pitched four no-hit innings against Louise. Friday Reeves and Connor Lichnovsky combined to no-hit Bloomington. Prior to that Owen Brenek pitched six innings of two-hit 10-strikeout ball against Flatonia.

“We’re strike throwers,” said Schulenburg head coach Marty Bigham. “We’re just trying to get ahead and stay ahead. That’s the goal.”

We’re proud to honor this dominate trio of Schulenburg junior starting pitchers, Lichnovsky, Reeves and Brenek, as this week’s Fayette County Athletes of the Week.

We caught up with all three after Tuesday’s victory.

“We’re putting in the work in practice,” said Lichnovsky of this team’s success.

“As a team we bond well and have that chemistry.”

Reeves said, “We just focus on that next pitch.”

“We mesh well,” Brenek said. “We’ve played baseball together our whole lives. We don’t overcomplicate things.”

All three said last year’s playoff run paved the way for this year’s early success.

“It built confidence from last year,” Brenek.

“We want revenge, we want to go all the way back and win it all,” Reeves said.

We asked all three players to describe the other two.

“We can always rely on them. They always throw strikes,” Lichnovsky said of Reeves and Brenek.

“Confidence is a big thing and they both have a lot of it,” Reeves said of Brenek and Lichnovksy.

“They are both dogs,” Brenek said of Reeves and Lichnovksy. “They get up there and get after it. Less balls, more strikes. They make hitters very uncomfortable, We all do that very well.”

Another big key to this trio’s success is Bigham, who has been the Schulenburg assistant the previous three seasons, and this year became the head coach when Isaiah Barrera left for Giddings.

Bigham, a Schulenburg native himself, actually coached many of these hurlers in youth baseball starting when they were nine and 10 years old.

“At that youth level we talked to them all the time about how hard high school baseball is, saying your high school coach will be telling you this, and it turns out that’s me,” Bigham said.

“He played college baseball and was a great pitcher.” Brenek said of Bigham. “He’s been around the game his whole life. We’ve known him our whole life. It’s comfortable, and we can just go out and play some ball.”

“When something bad happens he’s really big on next pitch and that helps a lot when you are down,” Reeves said.

“I’ve played for Coach Bigham ever since I could throw a baseball,” Lichnovsky said. “It’s good to have someone you know and mesh well together with.”

With these three hurlers leading the way, and under Bigham’s direction, the sky’s the limit for Schulenburg baseball.