Platte County junior Liam Blacklock slides into second base in the 7-6 regular season finale win against North Kansas City on May 8.
PLATTE CITY – Platte County (18-11) proved the motto, ‘it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish’ to be true with an impressive 15-3 mark on the baseball field since April 1 to enter the postseason on a hot streak.
The beginning of the season wasn’t pretty for Platte County, which only won three of its first 11 games. Being on the wrong side of five consecutive games after winning the season opener and experiencing a three-game losing skid at the end of March could have discouraged other teams, but that isn’t the case in this instance.
The Pirates kicked off April with a 15-1 win over Raytown (7-13) to ignite the strong play that was followed by six straight wins. Each of three losses in the final 18 games were against Class 6 opponents – all of which were tight games.
Platte County narrowly fell 3-2 to Staley (26-9), 8-6 to Liberty (28-8) and 7-4 to Raymore-Peculiar (19-16). Discounting four losses to out-of-state teams, six of the Pirates’ seven defeats this season came to Class 6 schools.
Kearney (25-7) was the only Class 5 foe who has been able to take down Platte County this year, which ended by a score of 3-1 on March 22. That was a rough day for the Pirates as they had five errors, only had three hits, went down 2-0 in the first inning and had their sole run come in the top of the fifth inning on an RBI single by Liam Blacklock.
That game ended up being a factor in the seedings of the Class 5 District 8 Tournament, which will be at Creekside Baseball Complex. Kearney locked in the No. 1 seed and Platte County clinched the No. 2 seed.
The Pirates have improved since then and have favorable matchups in their path to the district championship game where they’re seeking to bring home the first district title since winning the state championship in 2022. Platte County starts off the postseason against Van Horn (9-16) on May 15 and with a win, would move on to play Smithville (16-15) or Lincoln College Prep (15-11) on May 16.