Omaha Burke Baseball gave the school a season to remember. Just last year, the bulldogs ended with a record of 9-19. This year the Bulldogs finished 14-12 and brought home a District runner-up plaque. This was a huge year for the bulldogs. They faced a big challenge with a new coach coming in and picking up the program. This season is the beginning of something great.
“I am most proud of how the boys became a closer team throughout this year. They have done an exceptional job establishing a culture we want representing Burke HS. We plan to continue to grow the program by helping in the development process of transitioning young adults into respectable men.” Tom Lipari said.
The bulldogs are led by an outstanding new coaching staff that includes Head Coach Tom Lipari, Assistant coaches, Dusten Crichton, Matthew Hennings, Cody Moore, Mike Gilbert and Micheal McGovern. These coaches have completely bought in to help the boys continue to grow this program. This season brought lots of ups and downs with big wins and bad losses but throughout the season with the bulldogs facing adversity, they never gave up.
“This season brought me many emotions, both positive and negative,” Kade Crichton said. “It was difficult to stay positive when the team or I wasn’t playing well, but it was also difficult to stay level when things were going good. A lot of the positives came from personal success, winning, and enjoyed time with my friends, which I enjoyed. It made me realize how thankful I was to have the opportunity I did at Burke as well.”
Burke had lots of positives, but staying level was the hardest for them. When they got on a hot streak and too ahead of themselves, things went downhill. This resulted in some losses. This season left many memories behind for the team and how they grew together with a huge District Semi-final win against Omaha Westview.
“My favorite memory from this season is beating our biggest rival, Westview in the district semifinals to go to the district championship,” Jaden Eskra said. “This game meant a lot because just earlier in the season we fell short to them 12-5 in the OPS tournament, but we continued to grind as a team to get better. That led us to shutting Westview down 2-1 in one of the biggest games of the year.”
The big win against Westview shut down their season earlier than they were expecting. Just the day after the bulldogs took a loss to Lincoln Southwest which ended Burkes State dreams this year. Many things are going to be missed after this absolutely great season.
“I’m going to miss just the daily get togethers,” Brayden Pickett said. “We will never all be playing on the same team again so I’m trying to savor every little moment.”
This team brought more hope to Burke than any team in the baseball program in a long time. The bulldogs aren’t going to stop where they did this year. This summer they plan to win a summer state title and try to advance further than just state, all while having fun.
“Summer is one of my favorite parts of baseball, we get to continue to play baseball, all while having fun and getting closer together as a team,” Rigley Renbarger said. “We are hoping to go to State this year for legion in Nebraska and go for it all.”
