There’s not much Kouts sophomore Ben Finney can’t do on a baseball field.
Finney plays center field in travel ball, but senior Jesse Overholt plays that position for the Mustangs. Kouts coach Jason Dorshorst noted Finney is also ranked among the top shortstops in the state in his class, but the team is well-stocked there with sophomore Billy Miller and senior Landon Garrett
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. Finney can pitch, too, but Dorshorst said “we have so many arms.”So Finney played second base for two seasons — until Dorshorst moved him to right field for the playoffs.
“When we made the decision we wanted to make the switch to put him in the outfield, we talked to him about it, and the one thing he said was, ‘I don’t think I brought my outfielder’s glove today, but I’ll figure it out,’” Dorshorst said. “It wasn’t like, ‘Oh,’ it was just like, ‘OK, let’s go,’ and he just went back out there and did his thing, and he’s been playing awesome out there.
“It’s not that he can’t play infield because he’s a heck of an infielder too. … We could play him anywhere, honestly.”
On top of all that, Finney is the leadoff hitter for the top-ranked Mustangs (31-1), who will play No. 4 Northeast Dubois (23-5) in their second straight Class 1A state championship game at Victory Field in Indianapolis at 7 p.m. Friday. He’s batting .366 with two homers, a team-high eight triples, 23 RBIs, 51 runs scored and 20 stolen bases.
Finney went 3-for-3 with an inside-the-park homer, two triples, four RBIs and three runs scored during Kouts’ 13-1 victory over Fort Wayne Blackhawk Christian in the semistate final on Saturday.
“I started off slow,” Finney said. “I was kind of in a slump in the hitting zone. But recently I’ve kind of found myself. My swing’s coming back to me, and I feel good now. It was just going and taking more reps for myself outside of practice. That helps a lot.”
Finney hit .412 with 29 RBIs, 46 runs scored and 23 stolen bases as a freshman last season.
“There wasn’t a lot of expectations, so I just wanted to prove myself to the coaches and my team,” he said. “I just wanted to do whatever I could to show them and just keep improving.”
It didn’t take long for Finney to make a believer of senior first baseman Eli Harper.
“Ben is one of the most electric baseball players I know,” Harper said. “He works hard and plays his hardest every game. Even when he’s struggling, he shows up. We need guys like that behind our seniors. Our seniors have the experience, and Ben is one of the guys that has followed and brings his energy to the table all the time.
“He’s always in a joking mood with the rest of our guys. He fits in well with the guys. As a senior, I wouldn’t want a better guy to lead the team next year. He’ll keep going, and he’ll turn into an even better player and become a great leader to the underclassmen. Overall, he’s just a great guy and great teammate to have.”
The Mustangs have reeled off 31 straight victories since their season-opening loss to Guerin, which will play Andrean for the Class 3A state title on Friday. Along the way, they won their first outright Porter County Conference round-robin title since 2004 and their first PCC Tournament title since 1998.
With a lineup devoid of seniors, the Mustangs were “in awe” at Victory Field last season, Dorshorst said, and they learned a lot from their loss to Indianapolis Lutheran. They’ve been been pointing to this moment ever since.
“It’s funny because when we won sectionals — and we struggled a little bit in the championship game, but we took care of it — no one was jumping up and down,” Dorshorst said. “There was no dog pile. It was like, ‘All right, one more down.’ There was a little bit more excitement at regionals, but there’s always been the underlying, ‘Hey, we have a job to do.’ Then we won semistate, and we 10-runned them, so it was a little anticlimactic.
“So there’s been some excitement there, and there should be. But our kids have said that it feels different this year, a different vibe. Last year, there was a certain element of ‘we hadn’t done it before,’ and we didn’t know what we didn’t know. There was a lot of ‘happy to be there,’ for good or bad. Not to say we’re not happy to be here because we’re ecstatic. A lot of things have to go right to get to do it. But there’s definitely an element of like, ‘We are not messing around.’ We want to get there and take care of business. They would go play tomorrow if they would let us.”
Finney believes the Mustangs can draw on their experience when they play Northeast Dubois, which is making its first appearance in a state championship game.
“It feels good to be back,” he said. “We’re confident. We know what to expect this time. Nerves are not really there. We’re definitely more confident than we were last year.”