Mission Accomplished

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” is an elegant way of describing the virtue of persistence.

But I like the way Fayetteville pitcher Jack Schley put it instead Saturday in the dugout at Dell Diamond with a gold medal around his neck.

“Falling short really sucks,” Schley said. The Fayetteville baseball program is one of the best in the state, and has been for a long time.

But for the previous two years they had fallen painfully short of their ultimate goal.

After twice losing by one run in the state title games in 2023 and 2024, nobody would have blamed the Lions for having a letdown in 2025.

Instead, this is the year persistence become perseverance for the Lions.

“That’s been on their mind for a while – every day in practice thinking about it,” said head coach Clint Jaeger of those second place finishes.

This is the year they turned silver motivation into a golden reality.

Saturday’s 4-2 victory over Gordon erased the oh-so-close pain of the previous two seasons.

“We wanted it. We were one out away (the past two years),” Schley said. “We really built off that this year.”

Schley had been the losing pitcher in each of the last two state title games.

But with his right arm (four innings of onerun ball) and his bat (a key hit in a two-run first inning for the Lions) Schley came up huge Saturday.

But he was far from the only one looking for redemption.

Most of this year’s six seniors on the Lions baseball team had watched from the stands as eighth graders at Dell Diamond when the 2021 Lions team won state, and they assumed the same fate awaited them – sooner rather than later.

But it took four long years. Senior Chance Konvicka pitched a complete game three-hit shutout in the state semis back when he was a sophomore.

But as a junior he never touched the mound See at state because of a torn UCL in his elbow.

“I had surgery two weeks after the state tournament last year,” Konvicka said. “Then had physical therapy for 6 or 7 months and I didn’t start pitching until about halfway through this season.”

But there he was pitching the final three innings of the state title game with the fate of his team riding on that left arm.

And he was stellar, allowing only two hits and one run to get the save.

After his own struggles in previous title games, Lions senior Easton Jaeger had an MVP performance in Saturday’s title game, reaching base all four times up and playing flawless defense.

“We had come so close every time and worked so hard to get here and kept falling short,” Easton said. “It (winning now) means more than it would before.”

Other seniors like Lawson Fritsch (the sparkplug at the top of the Lions lineup), Brody Dooley (the speedy left fielder), Jack Winford (a slick second baseman, and previously homeschooled move-in who found a new home here) and Kellen Lopez (a back-up catcher and leader in the dugout) all aced their one final test as Fayetteville High School students Saturday.

Meanwhile, a strong core of younger players will return next year for the Lions – but all of them with a keen sense that nothing in the future in guaranteed.

“They are boys I played with since I was young,” Schley said of the seniors. “It’s going to suck losing them, but we are going to have to get over it and do our best to come back next year. We will still have a good team but we are going to have to work for it – hard.”

Sometimes in life you don’t get a second chance.

Or a third chance. But these Fayetteville Lions worked hard for that third chance – and they made the most of it.

A great lesson for us all.