Platte County’s Chase James worked hard to get attention from colleges, but that eventually worked out and landed him a spot at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Mo.
His school teammate, Rhett Spell, had an opportunity to showcase his talents in front of baseball coaches but didn’t have his best day at the plate or in the field. That one-game sample didn’t wreck his chance to make it to the next level and he ultimately landed a spot playing at Benedictine.
The two each signed a national letter of intent to play prior to the start of their senior seasons for the Pirates.
He first visited Northwest Missouri State in January of 2019 and fell in love with everything it offered.
“I had campus visits and I just fell in love with it and I wanted to see what I needed to do to get there,” James said.
He reached out to Northwest coach Darin Loe and the two started communicating.
He will join a Bearcats program that won the MIAA regular season title in 2018, the first since 1983.
The roster features a number of Kansas City area players on the roster. James — who played for KC Select in summer ball — hopes to play middle infield or third base for the Bearcats.
“He didn’t have the junior year he wanted but he started tearing the cover off the ball and had a good summer and that carried into the fall,” Platte County coach John Sipes said. “He will be the leader of the team. If I had a ‘C’ to give a captain, he would have it for sure.”
Sipes, who is an all-time great at Northwest, said that James could project to play shortstop at the next level but could also see him being a corner infielder with pop.
James plans to major in business and minor in sports management.
Baseball has long been a passion for Spell but his favorite sport and his other high school sport — swimming — kind of went hand-and-hand when it came to picking the Atchison, Kan., school.
“I fell in love with the campus (at Benedictine),” Spell said. “I went to practice and I loved the energy. It was like how our swim team is. I like the family dynamic. That was where I wanted to go.”
However, the outfielder is still a bit shocked that the Ravens coaching staff even showed interested in him. He was running on two hours of sleep when his parents told him of a showcase tournament which the Ravens coaches were attending.
At the plate, Spell said he went 0-for-4 and a handful of errors didn’t exactly make recruiting coordinators jot down notes. But, he did enough to catch the eye of coach Eric Peterson at Benedictine.
“The coach said, ‘hey, we would like to recruit you,’” Spell recalled. “I was like, ‘are you sure you are talking to the right guy here? There are better players to look at here if you want.’”
He will either be an infielder or outfielder for the Ravens and he plans on being a mass communication major at the Catholic college.
Former teammate Dalton Riechers signed with Benedictine last season.
Sipes expects both James and Spell to be middle-of-the-order hitters this spring for the Pirates.