The SCC Storm baseball season is a little over a month old, and Head Coach Dion Parks’s team is garnering some national attention. They are ranked 14th with a 17-5 record.

“To be noticed nationally is great for our school and our baseball program,” Parks said. “But the season is really just getting started, so we have to focus on what we can control and that’s getting better each day.”

The coach said he feels like the strength of the team is its attitude and depth.

“You can see it the way they play,” Parks said. “They are in it for each other, and there isn’t any selfishness. They put winning ahead of individual achievement, and when you have a lot of good players that are willing to do that, you get to where you want to be at the end of the game more times than not.”

Sam Palensky leads SCC in hitting with a .391 average. Starting pitcher Colton Adams is 3-1 with a 1.67 E.R.A.

The Storm had a 15-game winning streak snapped on March 21 in a 9-6 loss to Dakota County after taking two (4-1, 9-8) the day before.

“Dakota County played very well on Saturday,” Parks explained. “They took advantage of a couple things that we made mistakes on. That’s the game, however. When you play a good team and you make a couple mistakes … they make you pay for it.”

SCC travelled to Iowa Central on Thursday, March 26, to begin a 16-game road trip that also had the team going to Dakota County, McCook, Brown Mackie, Cowley Country, North Arkansas, and Johnson County.

The team will return home April 16 to play a single game against Cloud County.

The head coach said his staff’s expectations going forward are simple and concrete.

“[We want to] compete from the first pitch of the game until the last one. I feel we have shown great competitive spirit to this point,“ Parks said.