A year removed from its first-ever state tournament appearance, the Aplington-Parkersburg baseball team will begin postseason play Saturday by hosting Jesup in a 2A District 12 first round game. It’ll air on 99 The Wave.
The Falcons are coming off a regular season where they bounced back from a slow start by winning most of their games since the second half of June. Head Coach Brett Kleespies says aside from a few outlying games, the defense has taken steps forward and cut down on mistakes.
“Good momentum going into the Saturday game here with Jesup,” Kleespies says. “Just kind of needed to button some things up and defensively, but pretty well down the stretch. And then there’s a few games here and there that kind of, you know, made some mistakes and it bit us in the butt a little bit. But just keeping geared up and ready to go for Saturday and hopefully, hopefully stay dry.”
Jesup has lost three straight to end the regular season, including blowouts against Don Bosco and Alburnett in non-conference play. It’s been a rare down year, with their first losing season since 2020. Kleespies says regarding personnel, he sees similarities between the teams.
“They’re just kind of cycling like we are, cycling through some young guys. And so I think they have two seniors and a couple of juniors that play. And then there’s a lot of underclassmen, freshmen, sophomores. It’s going to be a challenge. Jesup’s going to be ready to play. It’s a switch from Coach Wall, but Coach Saber has been on staff with Coach Wall. Played a lot of baseball against them. And unfortunately, the last two years we haven’t played them. And so it’s just kind of hard to tell what they’re going to bring, but they’re going be ready. All records go out the window in the postseason. Trying to get the guys to have that mindset and just be ready to play baseball, because I know that Jesup is going to be ready to play baseball.”
It’ll be the second game of a playoff doubleheader at the AP baseball field with a scheduled start time of 5:00, after the conclusion of a game between Union and Monticello. Pregame coverage will start at 4:40.
The winner will advance to Tuesday’s district semifinal against Dike-New Hartford, which will be hosted by Anamosa.
