Lake Central coach Mike Swartzentruber isn’t quite ready to say goodbye to senior center fielder Keegan O’Bryan and his family.
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O’Bryan’s older brother Quinn, a second baseman who graduated from Lake Central in 2024, got hot during the playoffs in his senior season and drew a walk on a 3-2 pitch with two outs in the 12th inning to secure the Indians’ win over Mooresville in the Class 4A state championship game.
Two years later, Keegan O’Bryan has heated up too.
“He’s like his brother,” Swartzentruber said. “His brother was the same way. On our state team, he was the glue, the guy that drove in the winning run. It was a walk, but he still had to have the guts to take ball four. Most guys would’ve expanded the zone and swung at it.
“Both guys are fantastic. Great parents, raised them right. They will run through a brick wall. They’re hard-nosed. They’re fundamentally sound. Neither one of them are very big, but they have a lot of heart. They compete. They buy into everything you want to do. It’s the last O’Bryan I’m going to have, so I’m going to enjoy the last few weeks here because those two guys have been fantastic.”
Keegan O’Bryan, an IU Kokomo commit, was fantastic during the Class 4A Crown Point Sectional championship game on Monday night. He went 3-for-3 with the go-ahead RBI double, two runs scored and a stolen base as the Indians edged the host Bulldogs 4-3.
Lake Central (24-8), which advances to a regional game against Goshen (22-6) on Saturday, defeated two highly ranked teams in three sectional games. The Indians opened the sectional with a victory against Munster, which was tied with Valparaiso at No. 5 in the state coaches poll, and then beat No. 2 Crown Point (25-6).
“It feels amazing,” O’Bryan said. “This whole series of sectionals was just a great team effort. We were the underdogs going in, but now we’re on top. So let’s keep it rolling.”
O’Bryan got the Indians rolling in the bottom of the first inning. Leading off, he singled, stole second base and scored to tie it at 1-1. He singled and scored again in the third to give the Indians a 2-1 lead, and he launched a double to right in the fourth to snap a 3-3 tie.
“Just sit fastball,” O’Bryan said of his approach. “See it, drive it. As soon as you get that fastball, just pound it. That’s all I have in my head.”
O’Bryan’s final at-bat was different, though.
“I saw a fastball early in the count, missed it to the left side, just got under it,” he said. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I have to get another one.’ Then I saw that slider late in the count and smoked it. That was great.”
Sophomore left-hander Owen Kopercinski again was great for Lake Central. After going the distance in the Indians’ five-inning victory against Munster, he earned the win against the Bulldogs with 3 2/3 scoreless innings of one-hit relief.
Kopercinski praised O’Bryan.
“Keegan’s amazing,” Kopercinski said. “He’s the heart and soul of this team. He brings everyone up no matter what. No matter the circumstances, he always has our back.”
O’Bryan is hitting .327 with 16 RBIs, a team-high 38 runs scored and a team-high 25 stolen bases.
“Early on, I started a little bit hot,” he said. “Then I had a little bit of a lull in the middle of the season. But being able to get out of that and change some things around, it just really brought my game to the next level.
“Being hot now is when you want to be hot, right? Playoff baseball, you gotta love it.”
Lake Central has been hot, too, winning 16 of its past 18 games. One of the wins was a 10-4 victory against regional opponent Goshen on May 23. One of the two losses was a 9-8 setback against Crown Point on May 13, when the Indians led 8-4 but allowed three runs in the sixth and two in the seventh.
“It’s a fantastic Crown Point team,” Swartzentruber said. “I’m probably as emotional — I’ve kind of calmed down now — but right after the game, I was as emotional now as when we won the state in ’24 just because nobody thought much of this team. ‘Oh, you don’t have any pitching. You have all these new guys. You graduated 13 seniors.’ I maybe thought that a few times in the back of my mind. If you’d watched us play, we had some games that were just bad — errors, walks.
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“But I can’t say enough. We’re not the most talented team. We have talent, though. They’ve been very coachable. They bought in. They’ve trusted the process. Good bunch of kids. Good things happen to good kids, and these guys deserve it. They stuck with it and kind of turned the season around.”