For all the question marks the Perry-Lecompton baseball team had going into the 2025 season, there was one constant Kaws coach Kent Houk knew he could count on.
 
And it’s one he knew he would have even before Eli Dean joined the program as a freshman in 2022.
 
“We knew he was going to be the real deal,” Houk said of his now-senior standout. “He’s a guy that we felt had a shot at being a Division I baseball player. He just had a great baseball IQ before he even came in. He’s played a high major level in the summers with his club teams.
 
“He’s just one of those kids that was the best athlete no matter what sport he was playing. And he’s so competitive it drives him to succeed. Everybody knew he was going to be the real deal.”
 
A three-sport standout at Perry who had earned all-league and All-Class 3A honors in football, basketball and baseball, Dean has shined the brightest on the diamond where he’s garnered first-team All-Big Seven League honors each of his first three seasons, including unanimous honors as a junior. Last year, he added first-team All-Class 3A honors as well after being a second-team pick as a sophomore.
 
“From the first moment I picked up a baseball, it was my favorite,” Dean said. “Football and basketball are really fun, but I play baseball all summer and practice all year for it.”
 
With the season he’s enjoying this year, there’s no reason to think he won’t duplicate those honors. Through 18 games this season, the Washburn signee is hitting a crisp career-best .627.
 
After leading Perry to the title at last weekend’s Berkley Walline Memorial Tournament, Dean and the Kaws have now won seven of their last eight games after getting off to a 4-6 start. Perry topped University Academy 7-2, Maranatha 14-1 and Veritas Christian 7-5 for the tourney title.
 

 
“I like the way the season’s progressing for sure,” Dean said. “We had to replace our top two innings guys from last year and so we had to figure that out. But now we’ve pretty much got that set and we’re starting to swing the bats even better now, too.”
 
Swinging the bat with proficiency is something Dean has always been able to do for the Kaws. As a freshman in 2022, Dean hit .349 out of the leadoff spot to rank third on the team among Kaw regulars and led the team with 22 runs scored. He upped his average to .527 as a sophomore, scoring 36 runs, and then hit .552 last year as a junior with 41 runs scored.
 
This season, he’s already scored 39 runs and has flashed some power, hitting not only the first home run of his high school career, but powering four out. He hasn’t sacrificed his plate discipline either, and in 320 career plate appearances for the Kaws, Dean has struck out just 11 times, including just once during both his sophomore and junior seasons.
 
“I don’t know that he’s really a leadoff hitter,” Houk said. “He’s probably better suited as a three or four-hole guy but he gets on all the time and can steal bases.”
 
Indeed, Dean has tallied 21 stolen bases this season, pushing his career total to 87.
 
But his contributions at the plate are only part of Dean’s importance to the team. A centerfielder for his club teams and the position he’ll play in college, Dean has been a mainstay at shortstop for the Kaws and last year posted a 1.000 fielding percentage, not committing a single error in 59 chances.
 
With Perry graduating its top three pitchers from a year ago, Dean has also taken on a bigger role on the mound this year as well. He began the year as a starter for the Kaws but has since moved into the closer role as teammates Garrett Metcalfe, Houston Habiger and Cooper Trendel developed into reliable starters.
 
“If we have a lead or are tied, we’ve won every game when I put him in,” Houk said. “He just pretty much shuts the show down.”
 
“I love it,” Dean said of his closer role. “You get to come in and throw hard and don’t really have to worry about saving yourself for later innings. It’s just a lot of fun.”
 
Dean has 46 strikeouts in 26.2 innings pitched this season, sporting a 2.62 ERA that was inflated by his early-season starts as the Kaws were still finding themselves against some of the toughest stretch of the schedule, opening with traditional power Silver Lake and also facing Santa Fe Trail, Sabetha, St. Marys and Rossville during the 4-6 start.
 
“We just had to get the pieces to fit,” Houk said. “We had to start from scratch with our pitching and had to make some of our infielders pitchers. Now we’ve settled into a system and it didn’t help starting off with who we started off with. We just had to learn who we were.”
 
Metcalfe, a sophomore, has picked up five wins in his six starts since taking over as the team ace and also has swung a solid bat with a .347 average, driving in 14 and scoring 31. Senior catcher Caige Starnes had enjoyed a huge season at the plate, hitting .379 with 5 home runs and breaking the Kaws’ single-season RBI record with 37 driven in.
 
Three other regulars are also hitting over .300, including sophomore Kayden Baker, who hits in the nine hole and has scored 21 runs, getting on base at a .510 percentage to set the table for Dean and Co.
 
Perry’s recent hot streak, which continued with an 11-10 win over Hiawatha on Monday before the second game was rained out tied 3-3 after eight innings, will get perhaps its ultimate test Thursday against arch rival Jefferson West.
 
The Tigers are 18-1 this season, coming off their first loss of the season on Monday when they split with Sabetha, dropping the first game 5-3 before taking the second 13-0. West started the season 17-0 and is a familiar rival, not only from their time together in the Big Seven, now Big East League, but also as annual regional foes.
 
“We spent three or four years where we would knock them out at regionals and then they’d spend three or four years knocking us out,” Houk said of West. “It was between us and them a lot and then Bishop Ward or Hayden got mixed in. It’s always been a really tough region.”
 
Dean said he was excited to see just how the Kaws stack up now that they’ve found their identity.
 
“They’re a great team and it’s going to be a challenge,” he said. “But it will be a good test to see where we’re at and see what we’re made of for sure. It’s about seeing what we’e got, what they’ve got and how we stack up.”
 
 
OTHER BASEBALL STANDOUTS

• Jefferson West stayed unbeaten, moving to 17-0 with a hard-fought sweep of Valley Falls, taking 3-1 and 6-5 victories. Cooper Watkins had a game-winning walk-off RBI single in the bottom of the seventh of the second game. Drew Beilman had a solo home run and Brady Skahan and Colin Crowson each had three hits.
• Wamego’s Kaden Kearn tied a state record with six steals in a 12-1 win over Marysville as the Red Raiders picked up a North Central Kansas League sweep of the Bulldogs. Kearn tied the mark shared by three others – Word of Life’s Blaine Bridwell (2011), Mission Valley’s Porter Deters (2023) and McPherson’s Brody Seidl (2025).
• Rock Creek knocked off two ranked teams at the McPherson Quad last Friday to take the four-team tourney title. The Mustangs, No. 7 in Class 4A, used a three-run seventh inning to ice a 5-1 win over 3A No. 2 Iola with Jordy Scott driving in two. Ryker Zoeller scattered three hits over five innings to get the win, tying Daegen Vinduska for the most wins in school history with his 19th. Brock Lubbers got the save with two scoreless, hitless innings, striking out six batters. In the finals, Rock Creek edged 4A No. 2 McPherson 1-0 with Jesse Lies’ RBI in the second inning holding up. Lubbers got the win allowing three hits and striking out six in four innings and Cooper Sieben picked up the save with three scoreless innings in relief, allowing two hits. The Mustangs are 14-5 and have won eight of their last nine.
• Hayden stayed unbeaten in Class 4A with a 6-0, 3-2 sweep of Junction City. Cooper Grace struck out 12 in the shutout win, allowing just three hits and then had two doubles and a triple in the second game.
• Marais des Cygnes Valley’s Landon Reed threw a complete-game shutout in a 15-0 win over Northern Heights, striking out seven and walking two. The Trojans got the sweep with a 7-4 win in the second game, moving to .500 for the season at 7-7.

 
SOFTBALL STANDOUTS

• McLouth’s Dani Lee added even more to her legacy over the past week. After hitting 600 career strikeouts just three weeks ago, Lee picked up her 700th in the Bulldogs’ 10-0 win over Troy/Maur Hill on Monday in a 13-strikeout performance. She now has 711 career strikeouts. Lee also drove in 27 over a nine-game stretch the last week plus to give her 205 career RBI, breaking the state record of 197 career RBI set by Bishop Carroll’s Kaylin Watkins from 2016-19. Lee homered four times in the stretch as well, giving her 44, three shy of the state record of 47 set by Olathe Northwest’s Kendall Yarnell from 2021-24. McLouth is now 23-0 as it goes for a third straight Class 2-1A state championship.
• Nemaha Central’s Reagan Gerety had a big performance in the Thunder’s 4-3 win against Centralia on April 21. Gerety threw a three-hitter and walked none while striking out 18 in the win. She also had a big hit in a two-run third for the Thunder that keyed the win.
• Chapman continued its breakout season, sweeping Concordia, Riley County and Council Grove to move to 17-1 on the season. The Irish outscored their opponents 61-9 in the six games.