The Blair Senior Legion baseball team is off to a 2-0 start this season.
Most recently, Post 154's Nate Wachter supplied a walk-off swing during a J'Shawn Unger pitching win — the Nebraska recruit's first post-2023 injury — Tuesday.
Notably, two 2023 Blair High School graduates, Lee Chavez-Lara and Greyson Kay, are back in the lineup this summer, joining a roster filled with Bears who just completed a deep run into the NSAA Class B State Championships tournament.
“It's all of the guys,” Kay said when asked why he came home after his first season at Briar Cliff University (Iowa). “They all wanted me to play, and I want to spend another year with them playing instead of playing in some other league.”
Chavez-Lara, meanwhile, is back to finish some unfinished business. The Post 154 Seniors went 27-6 in 2023, but didn't advance beyond the Area tournament after back-to-back, upset losses.
“We had such a great season last year and it ended not the way we wanted it to,” the second baseman explained. “So, I wanted to come back and, hopefully, have a better ending to it.”
In his first game back, a 16-0 win on May 23, Chavez-Lara was hit by a pitch.
“I get hit, I get on base,” he said, laughing. “Helps this team, I guess.”
Blair's season-opening, run-rule victory against Omaha Northwest took just three innings at Vets Field. Bears were hit by pitches four times and walked 10 more altogether.
Post 154's Dylan Swanson finished with a double and four RBIs, while Wachter hit a double and had two. Tanner Jacobson hit a triple, too, while Unger, Lucas Matejka and Chavez-Lara recorded RBIs.
Kay had an RBI against Northwest as well.
“I passed all of my classes, so that's probably the best thing I can say,” the multiple-sport athlete said of his first college year with the Chargers in Sioux City. “But, yeah, baseball was fun. Basketball was fun.”
The Senior Legion squad won its aforementioned second game back together six days later, 3-2, too. Weather postponements made the wait between ballgames longer than anticipated.
Wachter made it worth the wait, though, pushing across the go-ahead run against Springfield in walk-off fashion during the bottom of the seventh inning. Chavez-Lara, Carter Saylor and Jacobson all reached base leading up to his plate appearance.
“I'm confident in myself as a hitter,” Wachter said. “If you give me a runner on third with less than two outs, I'm going to score him.”
The catcher finished 1-for-3 with an RBI, while also laying down a sacrifice bunt earlier during the win.
“It's kind of hard to mess up in that situation unless you strike out,” Wachter said of his heroics. “I got put in the right spot and just had to hit a ball in play.”
Matejka, Blair's starting pitcher, finished the team victory with eight strikeouts across six innings. Unger, though, earned the pitching win in relief. Throwing for the first time since a spring 2023 injury to his throwing arm, the recent BHS grad walked the first batter he faced, but struck out the next two with his trademark velocity after picking off the runner trying to get to second base.
“It felt really good to get back up there after a long year,” Unger said. “I'm not going to lie, I was a little nervous. First close after coming off of a big injury like that.”
The Nebraska recruit earned satisfying results, though, turning his 12 pitches into his first victory in more than 12 months.
“Pretty surreal moment,” he said. “Happy where I'm at now. It was just pretty awesome.”
It's been a long road back for Unger, one his teammates have seen him tackle all year long.
“It's just awesome to get to catch him first of all, but also to see him go out there and dominate,” Wachter said. “You can tell it's a whole different level when he goes out there.”
In addition to Wachter's RBI, Brady Brown pushed across a Post 154 run during the third frame. Jacobson, meanwhile, scored Blair's first of the night during the first. Both he and Kay finished with two hits against Springfield, while Saylor had one.
POST 154 SENIOR LINE SCORES
Tuesday
Blair 3, Springfield 2
SPRING 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 — 2 4 2
BLAIR (2-0) 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 — 3 6 1
May 23
Blair 16, Omaha Northwest 0, 3 inn.
ONW 0 0 0 — 0 1 3
BLAIR (1-0) 9 7 X — 16 5 0
