Fayetteville’s Four Senior Baseball Players Ready to Go Out With a Bang

When the Fayetteville baseball team won the state title last season with six seniors on the team, some outsiders might have thought the Lions’dynasty on the diamond might be coming to an end.

“People weren’t expecting us to be where we are,” said Fayetteville head baseball coach Clint Jaeger, whose team is playing this week in the regional finals for the sixth consecutive season. “But we knew where we could be.”

While there are lots of new faces playing in new places for the Lions this season, some things haven’t changed.

Kole Schmitt, Jack Schley, Mason Fenhaus and Jason Halfmann have been fixtures for the Fayetteville team that has played in the state title game each of the last three seasons.

Now seniors, those four are hoping to go out with a bang this season.

“We lost a lot of seniors last year. We’ve been overlooked,” Schley said. “But we are still as good as last year.”

Those four seniors got their diplomas two weeks ago.

Now they want another state gold medal as a final keepsake from their hard work at Fayetteville High School.

“Those seniors are big for us,” said Jaeger said of those four. “Jack gets a lot of recognition, and that’s well deserved (Schley just might be the most dominant pitcher and hitter left in the 1A playoffs, and he threw three no-hit innings and homered in last week’s regional semifinals), but Kole’s been a three-year starter for us (now playing first base and pitching), Mason is back to being a starter (in centerfield) and Halfmann (the team’s left fielder) has been waiting his turn and he’s really come through when we’ve needed him.”

We’re pleased to honor all four senior members of the Fayetteville baseball team as this week’s Fayette County Athletes of the Week.

We caught up with all four Tuesday morning after a practice when they were teeing off on some batting practice pitching.

Halfmann hit a pair of homers over the fence. Schley hit a liner into the outfield wall so hard it blew a hole in an advertising sign hung there – at least the third time he’s done so.

As much success as the Lions have had this season (they are 10-5 overall and outscored their playoff opponents 27-1) they are still kind of just getting into baseball mode.

Three of the seniors – Schmitt, Schley and Fenhaus were starters on the Fayetteville basketball team that made it to the boys state title game (for the first time in 84 years at the school), which really cut into the start of baseball season.

No problem, their coach says.

“We always say that success breeds success,” Jaeger said. “We want to go as far as we can in basketball because that will bleed into baseball.”

These are all-around athletes of the highest caliber.

The seniors have also made it to state in track (Schley and Fenhaus) and as a cross country team (Schmitt and Fenhaus).

“When I think about how many times we’ve been to the state tournament in cross country, baseball and basketball, I’m going to look back at that when I’m older and be like, ‘dang we were actually pretty good,’” said Schmitt, who said he plans to go to Blinn and then Texas A&M and major in wildlife management.

Fenhaus was running at state in the 800 meters just last week.

“Since we have so few people here at this school everyone pretty much does every sport – and we all try to do the best we can,” said Fenhaus, who said he plans to Texas A&M and major in sports management.

Schley was also a twotime state runner-up in the triple jump as a sophomore and junior.

“We don’t think that much of it now,” said Schley, who plans to go to Blinn and A&M and major in agribusiness. “But some kids would be lucky to have one (state medal) and we’ve got multiple,” But they want one more. They are three series wins from doing so. Next up for the Lions this week is Medina, which has a good record (147), but the Lions beat the Bobcats 15-5 three weeks ago in a playoff warm-up game.

“We do have a target on our backs, but we have a lot of heart and dedication and we really want to go out with a bang,” said Halfmann, who plans to work as an electrician after high school. “We’ve been there before, and we can do it again. We have the love for this team and the love for this sport.”