After hitting nearly .500 a year ago for Chase County, a 3-for-3 night like the one Mitch Budke put together on Tuesday night against visiting Marais des Cygnes Valley might not seem that significant for the Bulldog senior.
 
And certainly his reaction would suggest as much.
 
“It was good,” Budke said matter of factly.
 
Given the journey Budke has taken to get to that point, however, there was nothing routine about the performance, which included a double down the left-field line.
 
Just four months ago, playing baseball seemed like an improbability for Budke. The Chase County standout lost all but the pinkie finger and part of the thumb off his left hand as well as the use of his left eye in a fireworks accident, leaving his athletic career in doubt.
 
But there was never a doubt in Budke’s mind that he would be back in the athletic arena. And on the baseball field this spring.
 
“I wasn’t going to miss it,” said Budke, this week’s Capitol Federal® True Blue® Student of the Week. “Not a chance. Even if I couldn’t play, I was going to be out there, be a leader and do whatever I could to support our team and do what I can to help us win.”
 

 
Sure enough, when the first day of practice arrived in mid-March, Budke was there ready to go. And quite frankly, nobody was shocked.
 
“Not one bit,” Chase County baseball coach Alex Weiss said. “Just knowing Mitch, I knew he was going to try.”
 
Trying – not to mention accomplishing – things is something Budke is simply used to. That’s led to a pretty full schedule throughout his academic and athletic career.
 
Budke has excelled in athletics as a four-sport athlete for the Bulldogs.
 

 
He was a four-year starter in football at quarterback and linebacker, earning first-team All-Eight-Player Division I honors three straight years, leading Chase County to the state quarterfinals this season. He finished the 2022 season with 2,366 rushing yards, 51 touchdowns and 154 tackles and in his career amassed nearly 8,000 combined rushing and passing yards with 149 total touchdowns and 486 total tackles.
 
A four-year letterman in wrestling, Budke was a two-time state qualifier and posted a career record of 86-34 with 76 pins. That included a 4-0 mark this season before the injury wiped out a shot at becoming a three-time state qualifier.
 
In the spring, he’s doubled up in baseball and track. After losing his freshman year to COVID, he was an All-Flint Hills League selection as an outfielder the past two seasons in baseball, hitting .481 with 29 stolen bases. In track, he's a two-time state qualifier in three events, helping the Bulldogs’ 400 relay to a third-place finish at state last spring.
 
But his interests go well beyond the athletic field.
 
Budke has been a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and a member of Chase County’s Kansas Association for Youth club for all four years and a member of the Future Business Leaders of America club for three years. He’s participated in Voices (Chase County’s select choir) for four years, forensics for three, played in the pep band, participated in musicals and plays and is a member of Chase County’s National Honors Society for the past two years.
 
“Mom and dad always pushed us to do everything, mostly just to see what we would like,” Budke said. “Well, I liked everything. So it gets pretty busy.”
 
In early December, that hectic activity-filled schedule came to a complete stop.
 
With his father – and wrestling coach – Derick turning 50, the family had gathered to celebrate, including both of Mitch’s siblings, older brother Cael and younger brother Luke. The boys were still hanging out outside when they decided to light off a crackling ball firework.
 
With Mitch’s birthday on July 8, so close to the Fourth of July, fireworks have been prevalent , so it wasn’t uncommon to have a leftover firework or two lying around the family farm. Derick and his wife, Tiffany, had just gone to bed when they heard the firework go off.
 
Only this time, Derick immediately knew something was wrong.
 
“We heard it from the inside,” Derick said. “Until the next week, I had just assumed it was a mortar shell. But it wasn’t. In my stomach, I knew something wasn’t right.”
 
Cael’s burst into the house confirmed that gut feeling.
 
When Mitch lit the firework, nothing originally happened. Thinking it was a dud, he went to pick it up to discard it. When he did, the ball exploded in his hand.
 
“I couldn’t feel anything,” Mitch said. “I kind of went into shock. I looked down and it was a little rough.”
 
The explosion ripped off Mitch’s index, middle and ring finger on his left hand while also taking part of his thumb. Shrapnel pelted the entire left side of his body, including his eye, and the explosion completely ruptured his left eardrum.
 
“Old fireworks can be unpredictable,” Derick said. “Instead of blowing up in stages, this one blew up all at once.”
 
Mitch was life-flighted to Wichita where he spent four days in the hospital. Even while being confined to a hospital bed awaiting the first of several surgeries, Budke was of the attitude that this setback wasn’t going to get the best of him.
 
“It definitely sucked for a little while,” he said. “But I’ve always been able to adapt to the situations I’ve been given. It was disappointing for sure, but I was able to roll with it and do the best I can with it.”
 
After being released from the hospital, Mitch immediately set to doing whatever he could to ensure he could get back on the playing field. In fact, he even lobbied to get into the regional wrestling line-up after Chase County’s 157-pounder suffered a late-season leg injury, opening up a spot.
 
“At home I was trying to do band exercises and one-armed pushups and running just to stay in shape,” he said. “I’d been going to practices every day and helping people out. I felt fine with it.”
 
But Derick and Tiffany vetoed such a quick return for precautionary measures with Mitch still slated for multiple surgeries to his hand in the coming months.
 
With that return blocked, Budke turned his sights to baseball. But even that came with obstacles to overcome.
 
A right-handed thrower, Budke didn’t have a way to keep the glove on his left hand in a functional way. Budke and a cousin studying engineering at Kansas State toyed with making a 3D print that could fit his hand, but with scar tissue on his remaining pinkie locking it into a curled position, that option wasn’t feasible.
 
So Budke learned how to catch with his right hand.
 
“Honestly, it took me a bout 30 minutes,” said Mitch, who will catch the ball in the glove and then tuck it under his arm, remove the ball and throw it back in with his right hand as well. “It wasn’t that hard. I’m naturally ambidextrous, so if I need to I can do things both ways.”
 
A left-handed hitter throughout his career, Budke had to work a little more with his swing, unable to grip the bat with his left hand. He worked extensively on his bunting skills, thinking that might be the only option when he was at the plate, but after experimenting with different ways of holding the bat, he now wears a sliding mitt on which he can rest the bat and get a full swing.
 

 
“At the beginning, I wasn’t sure what I was going to be able to do,” he said about his return to baseball. “Tracking balls in the outfield is hard because you lose an eye, it’s different. Especially if the ball is on the far side, I lose it and kind of have to guess on catching it. But I’ve gotten a lot better at it. I had to work on bunting a lot because that was basically all I could do. I got pretty good at that. Lately I’ve been taking more swings in BP and that’s come along too. So we’ll see.”
 
That led to Tuesday’s breakthrough 3-for-3 performance.
 
Budke also is competing in track, running the lead-off leg on Chase County’s 400 and 1,600 relays.  In their first meet of the season at Lyndon, both relays finished first.
 
“He’s a super-resilient kid and he’s always been able to figure things out his whole life,” Derick said. “And that’s what he’s doing with this. He’ll find a way. He’s never wavered from what he wants to do.”
 
Budke’s future desire is to fulfill his dream of playing college football. He has signed with Emporia State and has been in contact with Hornet head coach Garin Higgins and assistant coach Jace McDown since the accident and plans to join the team when he’s capable.
 
To assist him in both the conclusion of his high school baseball career and the start of his college football career, Budke will be getting a prosthesis from Arm Dynamics in Overland Park. The prosthesis will fit onto his left hand and give him gain of function with fingers and an opposable thumb.
 
In the meantime, the engineering class at Chase County has been trying to develop a silicon mold for Budke’s left hand. Additionally, a local leather worker in town has been designing a pad to help cover the sensitive areas on the hand for when Budke is batting.
 
Derick said the family has been overwhelmed by the reaction from the Chase County community, which included a biscuits and gravy breakfast with a gun raffle that raised around $16,000 to help with the medical costs. Another event – MitchFest – is planned for May 6 that will include a golf tournament, street dance and raffle items donated by surrounding universities such as Emporia State, Fort Hays State, Oklahoma State, Nebraska, Hutchinson Community College and Butler Community College.
 
“We’ve had great support from our community and the number of blessings have been unreal,” Derick said. “People have said that it will be a roller coaster with ups and downs, but honestly since we left the hospital, it’s all been on an upward path. The kids in the school have been amazing, the KAYS organization and church both helped out. The whole school, the whole community have just been amazing. It’s a weird, weird feeling to be on the receiving end. I’ve come to the realization that people are dying to help and you just have to let them.”
 
Sometimes it’s easy to help out those who help themselves and Budke has never let his accident derail him.
 
“There’s been down moments where you’re pissed off at the situation or disappointed,” he said. “But you just have to roll with it and play the cards you’ve been dealt. More or less I’ve been a pretty positive guy all throughout my life. I definitely want to set a good example. Show others that if you get down, get back up again and keep fighting through whatever it is.
 
“I try to lead by example and you just have to deal with it. You can’t let adversity get the best of you. You have to beat it.”
 
Which Weiss said Budke’s influence has been throughout his time at Chase County.
 
“It speaks for itself; we don’t have to say a word about it,” Weiss said. “Mitch, how he is in football, on the wrestling mat, on the baseball field, his presence just feeds through everybody. What he’s done on the field – football All-State, all-everything, baseball All-State, wrestling top-ranked -- those are all phenomenal things Mitch has accomplished. But what he accomplishes out here on a daily basis is the type of person he is, it affects everyone around him, and that’s what’s really impressive. You get the same Mitch every day. He is a very serious person when it comes to how he wants to attack his goals.”