File photo by Steve Muscatello Springfield’s Decker Scheffler homers against Minnesota Valley Lutheran in a game this season. Scheffler was a unanimous selection for the 2019 All-Journal Baseball Player of the Year.

By Jeremy Behnke

Journal Sports Editor

SPRINGFIELD — Springfield junior Decker Scheffler spent the entire summer of 2018 playing baseball.

Between legion baseball, amateur baseball, and a traveling all-star team in which he played with some of the top players across the country, Scheffler didn’t have many days away from the diamond.

Scheffler took a big step up this past spring, going from an All-Tomahawk Conference player as a sophomore to the most feared hitter in the area as a junior. Scheffler hit .476 from the leadoff spot, drilling seven home runs and leading the team with 37 RBIs. His .940 slugging percentage was as impressive as his 24 stolen bases and opposing teams had no idea how to keep him off the bases.

Scheffler was named the 2019 All-Journal Baseball Player of the Year. With one year left, a lot of coaches in the area will have to come up with a new plan about how they can limit him next year.

Scheffler’s career got better as soon as he started playing for Starters Sports, a traveling all-star team that played games in Indiana, Tennessee and Georgia last year in front of college scouts from all over the country.

“That helped a lot, seeing that pitching that I got to see consistently last summer,” Scheffler said. “It took a little bit to get used to coming back and seeing the pitching that I saw in high school. It’s a little bit different, but after I adjusted to it, it went pretty well.”

His coach Brandon Wilhelmi said that he’s naturally an aggressive player both at the plate and on the bases.

“Decker works extremely hard to be a great hitter,” Wilhelmi said. “He spends many hours in the cage at his shop and at the ballpark. Decker is an aggressive hitter and he’s looking for a pitch to hammer. He does a nice job at getting the barrel on borderline strikes and can hit to all parts of the field. Another quality of Decker is his ability to steal bases. If he got walked or hit a single he was often on second base on the next pitch or two.”

Wilhelmi said that Scheffler’s leadership has also grown and that Scheffler is frequently at Riverside Park with his teammates and younger players.

“I’m looking forward to being able to coach Decker on more year and watching him grow into a big time leader on our team,” Wilhelmi said. “It’s great to see him bringing different teammates and younger kids down to the ballpark to throw and hit in the cage. He’s almost down there every day. His work ethic is really rubbing off on others. He’s had back to back great statistical seasons and he’ll continue to work hard to make sure that he has another great year.”

That hard work showed his sophomore year when he hit .465 with four home runs, 32 RBIs and 28 stolen bases. This year he got physically stronger and that showed with the seven home runs.

“Decker has the ability to get the barrel on many pitches,” Wilhelmi said. “When you combine that with his bat speed the ball jumps off of his bat. I was impressed but also know that Decker has always been able to make the ball fly off his bat. Now it’s just more consistent for him.”

He’s the type of hitter that everyone watches when he’s up to bat.

“It’s fun, a lot of hard work goes into it, to see that it’s paying off a little bit is great,” Scheffler said. “I’m looking forward to next year obviously.”

He has continued to get the attention of college scouts all over. While it’s a distraction at times, he manages to not let it bother him while he’s playing.

“I try to avoid them until after the game when I talk to them,” he said. “During the game, I just try to play my game and just forget they’re there, which is kind of hard sometimes. But I’m getting better at it.”

Scheffler will continue his baseball travels this summer. He leaves on June 27 for a tournament in Georgia and he will continue to play with that team for most of July.

The baseball season was the exclamation point in Scheffler’s junior year, a year where he and the Tigers went to state in both football and basketball and made it to the section finals in baseball.

Scheffler would like to get back to the baseball state tournament his senior year. As an eighth-grader, he played second base for the state championship team and he’d like to duplicate that success.

“That would be a heck of a time, from playing in the state tournament to the hotels with the team, hopefully getting to Target Field would be a great way to go out,” he said.