Wichita baseball stars help power Team Kansas to national high school title
The same stadium that turns Omaha into the center of college baseball every summer had a different kind of Kansas celebration Sunday night.
This one belonged to the next wave of stars.
Team Kansas, a collection of the state’s top high school baseball talent, won the High School Baseball National Championship Series with a 6-1 victory over Florida at Charles Schwab Field. On a national ESPNU broadcast, against the No. 1 seed in the bracket, Kansas finished off a five-day run that started Wednesday, survived one midweek loss and ended with players in purple jerseys piling up a national championship in the same ballpark where college baseball legends are made.
Kansas finished 5-1 in Omaha and won three straight elimination-style bracket games as the No. 6 seed, taking down No. 3 North Carolina, No. 7 Arizona and No. 1 Florida on the way to the title.
For Wichita-area baseball, the championship had a familiar fingerprints-all-over-it feel.
Five local players were part of the roster: Mulvane’s Brody Clasen, Maize’s Quincey Koehn, Collegiate’s Maddox Drumright, Collegiate’s Jacob Stehley and Maize’s Drake Blasi. Three of them — Blasi, Stehley and Drumright — started the national championship game. Koehn helped set the tone for the week on the mound. Clasen closed out one of the biggest wins that kept Kansas alive.
The final statement, though, came from Brock Bailey, the Blue Valley Southwest sophomore who was named championship MVP after throwing a complete-game gem against Florida. Bailey held Florida without an earned run and allowed just four hits across seven innings to earn top honors.
Florida struck first with a run in the second inning, but Kansas answered in the fourth when Stehley, a Wichita State commit, delivered an RBI groundout to tie the game at 1-1.
Then came the inning that broke the game open.
Kansas erupted for four runs in the fifth, including an RBI single from Blasi to help stretch the lead to 5-1. Kansas added another run in the seventh, giving Bailey more than enough cushion to finish off the 6-1 win. Drumright also added a hit in the championship game, giving the Wichita-area starters a hand in the final offensive push.
It was the finishing touch on a week that kept building in difficulty.
Kansas opened the tournament Wednesday with a 5-0 win over Nebraska, powered by Koehn’s shutout performance over five innings. Clasen, who was just weeks removed from helping Mulvane win the Class 4A state championship, came in to help close out the win.
On Thursday, Kansas beat Texas 6-3, with Stehley collecting two hits, two runs scored and an RBI. The lone stumble came Friday in a 7-1 loss to Louisiana, a game in which Blasi picked up two hits.
Kansas responded the next day with one of its most important wins of the week, rallying late in the sixth inning to beat North Carolina 3-2. Clasen closed out the final two innings on the mound, helping Kansas advance to the semifinals.
That set up a Sunday sprint to the title.
Kansas beat Arizona 4-3 in the semifinals on a walk-off error in the ninth inning with Blasi and Stehley each collecting a hit. Hours later, Kansas headed toward Charles Schwab Field and played its cleanest game of the week against Florida.
For a roster made up almost entirely of players in the Class of 2027, it was a glimpse of what the next year of Kansas high school baseball could look like. Bailey and Olathe Northwest’s Luke Busse were the only Class of 2028 players on the roster.
The group was loaded with Division I talent. Ryker Mahnke of Lawrence Free State is committed to Missouri. Stehley and Drumright are committed to WSU. Brayden Shannon of Blue Valley Southwest is committed to Nebraska. Cole Ryherd of Blue Valley West is committed to SIU Edwardsville. Koehn is committed to Kansas.
But the championship was not built by a handful of names alone. It took a full-state roster to survive six games against some of the best high school players in the country.
Team Kansas’ roster featured Brock Bailey (Blue Valley Southwest), Jackson Barker (Shawnee Mission South), Drake Blasi (Maize), Luke Busse (Olathe Northwest), Brody Clasen (Mulvane), Carson Cooke (Mill Valley), Maddox Drumright (Collegiate), Dylan Eikenbary (Kansas City Piper), Matthew Gravitt (Blue Valley), Hudson Hardesty (Lawrence), Quiney Koehn (Maize), Owen Lester (Lawrence Free State), Ryker Mahnke (Lawrence Free State), Connor McCool (Shawnee Mission South), Cole Ryherd (Blue Valley West), Brayden Shannon (Blue Valley Southwest), Jacob Stehley (Collegiate), Carter Taldo (Olathe West) and Colin Zimbelman (Basehor-Linwood).
The team was coordinated by Dallas Reed, while the coaching staff also included Jeff Schroeder and Glen Stope.
The High School Baseball National Championship Series was launched in 2019, relaunched in 2022 and has continued to grow. Last year marked the first time it became a true championship event. This year’s field included 18 states, stretching from California to Florida, from Massachusetts to Hawaii.
By Sunday night, the state that is often overlooked on national baseball stages had its own Omaha dogpile.
And five players from the Wichita area had helped carry Kansas there.
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