State baseball tournament opens with one site

For the first time since 1994 the state high school baseball tournament will be played at one site when the class 1A quarterfinals are played at Principal Park in Des Moines. After a two-year absence top-ranked Lansing makes a 16th appearance when the Hawks take on Walnut in the opener at noon. Kee High coach Gene Schultz says they entered the season with lofty expectations after thinking they were a year away last year. He says they hoped to get out of a tough district and were surprised to do so well. He says they’ve played almost a perfect season.The Hawks are 39-3. Seventh rated Granville Spalding is in the tournament for the fifth time in the last six years and takes a 26-9 record into a matchup with sixth ranked Sentral of Fenton.This will be their second meeting after Spalding won an early season contest. Spalding coach Bill Wuebker says it was a scoreless game until they broke it open late, so he says there’s no comparison between then and now. He says experience has been a key as a lot of them played on last year’s state tourney team and know what to expect. Wuebker says this is not his most talented team but it does the little things needed to be successful.Sentral is 28-5.