Returning all but two seniors off last year’s team that finished 26-3, Jefferson West’s 15-0 start to the 2026 season isn’t hardly a shocking development.
 
At the same time, though, there was perhaps a bit of uncertainty for the Tigers coming into the 2026 season. Despite minimal losses to graduation, it was an even bigger loss that the program suffered in the offseason that perhaps led to questions as to just whether the Tigers would hit the ground running this year as successfully as they have.
 
Following last season, Dan Hypse stepped down as head coach of the Tigers, retiring after 35 years with the program. Hypse won just short of 500 career games during his time as head coach and was the only head coach Jefferson West baseball had ever had.
 
Hypse’s decision left a huge void to fill, and though he didn’t necessarily know it at the time, Terry Stueve somewhat positioned himself to be Hypse’s successor when he joined the Tigers staff last year as an assistant coach. A Jefferson West alum, Stueve previously had served as head coach at Nemaha Central, starting the program at that school in 2013 and guiding the Thunder to the Class 3A state championship in 2016 when they finished 23-1.
 
But when his wife, a physician, got a job at Stormont Vail Hospital in Topeka three years ago, Stueve left Nemaha Central. He spent the 2024 season as an assistant coach at Perry-Lecompton before returning to his alma mater last year as an assistant coach, taking a teaching job in the science department at the school.
 
“I thought it kind of would be cool to go back home, but maybe not so cool to follow a legend,” Stueve said. “I actually played for him, was on some of his first teams. I’d always kept in touch with Coach and would ask him for advice here and there.
 
“During last year, he kind of in practice and during games, he kind of relinquished some of those different roles he had as a head coach and let myself and the other assistant coach, Brian Axtell, do some of those things. That was kind of his way of maybe turning the program over to one of us. He told us it could be his last year, but he wasn’t going to make that decision for sure until over the winter.”
 
Once he did, Stueve somewhat deferred the job of replacing Hypse to Axtell, who had been his assistant for over a decade. When Axtell indicated he wanted to remain in his currect position, Stueve put in his application and ultimately got the job.
 
“I was definitely excited,” Stueve said. “I was eager but on the same hand, following Coach, he’s been the only guy here. Those were very big shoes to step into. But I learned so much from him. Any time you can spend time with somebody who’s been in the game as long as Coach had, there are little things you pick up. It might not be a drill, but rather, ‘How is he dealing with this?’ or ‘How is he handling this player or this situation?’ Things like that, seeing how he handled everything.”
 
The excitement of taking over the program stemmed in large part with what Jefferson West had coming back. The only losses to graduation a year ago were senior shortstop Drew Beilman, the team’s leading hitter, and outfielder Tucker Holthaus, both of whom earned All-Big East League honors of some kind.
 
But what returned was more than enough to keep West among the top contenders in Class 3A this season. 
 
For starters, the Tigers returned their ace in senior Cooper Watkins, who was named the Class 3A pitcher of the year last spring by the Kansas Association of Baseball Coaches after going 11-1 with a 2.11 ERA and striking out 106 batters.
 
In addition, West also returned second-team all-league pitcher Corbin Mayer and second-team all-league third baseman Brody Thelen. The returning roster had a nice mix in different classes with last year’s state roster consisting of five juniors, six sophomores and four freshmen to go with the departed senior duo.
 
“Dan did that intentionally, setting the next person up for success,” Stueve said. “Probably not an easy decision on his part, necessarily, knowing what he would have had this year. But it was definitely exciting and I was able to work with some of those guys playing football this fall and we had some success there.
 
“Last year, they had that bad taste in their mouth, not doing what we wanted to do at state. So they came back hungry.”
 
West’s season ended with a 2-0 loss to league rival Sabetha in the Class 3A state quarterfinals. The only other losses the Tigers suffered in 2025 came to Sabetha and Nemaha Central, by two and one run, respectively.
 
With Watkins and Mayer, who was 9-1 last year, leading the way, pitching carried the Tigers. This year, Stueve has sought more balance and thus far has gotten it.
 
While the pitching has once again been stellar – Watkins is 6-0 with a 1.16 ERA and Mayer is 2-0 with a 3.00 ERA – the Tiger bats have done their part as well.
 
West is hitting .343 as a team, led by junior Max Tuck, who is hitting .500. Brady Skahan (.467), Thelen (.444) and Cyler Monhollon (.435) are all hitting over .400 and Watkins (.391) and Jaxon Pollard (.308) are also over .300.
 
Watkins leads six players with double-digit RBI totals with 18, followed closely by Thelen’s 17. Six different Tigers have also scored at least 10 runs and West has drawn 107 walks as a team as well.
 
On the season, they’re averaging nearly 10 runs per game.
 
“One thing they wanted to do better in their minds this season was to be able to hit,” Stueve said. “They didn’t want to be in a situation where we have to rely solely on our pitching. We wanted to win games in different ways if we have to. We’d love to hold teams down to one or two runs if that’s possible, but sometimes it’s not and we don’t want to be in a situation where we can’t score runs.
 
“We’re definitely trying to score as many as we can and we’re trying to play for big innings, especially early in games.”
 
Even with Watkins and Mayer returning as a solid 1-2 atop the rotation, Stueve wanted more depth behind them, a key come postseason time, and has seen that as well. Sophomore Cooper Knox also has stepped up and gone 3-0 with a 2.25 ERA while Thelen is 2-0 with a 1.71 ERA and senior Cooper Briggs is 1-0 with a 2.00 ERA.
 
“We wanted to take some pressure off Cooper and make sure his arm is healthy and lively at the end of the year,” Stueve said. “We needed to have more depth and those guys have come along and have been good for us.”
 
 West opened the season with a convincing 10-2, 10-1 sweep of a Rossville team returning many key pieces off its 2025 Class 2-1A state tournament team. After sweeping league foes Hiawatha and St. Marys, West captured the title at the Silver Lake Golden Glove Tournament, beating Hiawatha (12-2), 2-1A power Valley Falls (6-1) and host Silver Lake (15-8).
 
The Tigers have followed with league sweeps of Royal Valley, Riley County and Silver Lake, the sweep of the Eagles perhaps their toughest games of the season in 6-3 and 8-4 wins. That kicks off a tough stretch over the next week-plus where the Tigers will also see Valley Falls again as well as Sabetha, which handed them two of their three losses last year, and arch rival Perry-Lecompton.
 
“We knew Silver Lake could swing it and we would have to pitch well, play defense and we were probably not going to win a 2-1 ballgame or something like that, we were going to have to score some runs to beat them,” Stueve said. “Those were good tests that we needed. We knew we need to be pretty good during this upcoming stretch to be in the position we want to be in at the end of the season.”
 
Sitting 15-0, the transition has been a successful one for the Tigers.
 
“I’m pleased – can’t complain about 15-0,” Stueve said. “I tried to do a lot of stuff early that Coach Hypse had done the year before to make that transition a little easier. As the season’s gone, we’re starting to do a few different things, a different drill here or there and some changes in philosophy. I think for the most part the kds have bought in. We’re obviously not as good as we can be yet but hopefully we will start to do that here in the next month or so.”

OTHER BASEBALL STANDOUTS

• Mission Valley is 11-0 to start the season and set a school record in a sweep of Northern Heights in the second doubleheader of the season, scoring 25 runs in each game to set single-game and doubleheader scoring records. The Vikings also knocked off Burlington 4-3 and also has sweeps of Wabaunsee, Marais des Cygnes Valley, Lebo/Waverly and Chase County. The Vikings have outscored their opponents 178-32, scoring 11 or more runs in nine of the 11 games. Six Vikings are hitting .485 or better – Gunnar Trickel (.588), Keegan Hoelting (.581), Bryce Bunger (.556), Peyton Christiansen (.524), Jake Mills (.500) and Sam Bryan (.486). Trickel is 5-0 with a 0.59 ERA and 43 strikeouts and threw a perfect game this season, while also added 22 RBI. Christiansen is 4-0 with a 3.12 ERA and 36 strikeouts. Bunger has 5 home runs and Hoelting has three, each with 22 RBI. Mills has 19 RBI and Christiansen and Bryan each have 18.
• Wamego captured the title at the Walkoff Wood Bat Tournament in St. Joseph (Mo.), going 3-0 with wins over Maryville, Mo. (7-4), California, Mo. (12-6) and Mid-Buchanan, Mo. (8-6). Macoy Moody was 7 for 13 with 3 doubles, a grand slam and 8 RBI while Nate Gallagher was 9 for 18 with 5 RBI. Earlier in the season, Moody threw a no-hitter against Osawatomie, striking out 10 and also helping himself with a home run and 4 RBI. The following week, the Red Raiders got their first win over Rock Creek since 2022 in a split with the Mustangs with Moody driving in 5 while going 7 for 9 and Isaac Braun throwing a 1-hitter with 9 strikeouts. Wamego also picked up its first win over Clay Center since 2020 in a split.
• Valley Heights freshman Preston Smerchek has a 1.65 ERA through his first 17 innings pitched this year. He’s also struck out 18 and offensively leads the Mustangs with a .422 average with a team-high 13 RBI. Fellow freshman Ben Miller is hitting .333 with 10 RBI and another freshman, Kaine Seleska, also has 10 RBI.
• Marais des Cygnes Valley’s Gus Ford threw a no-hitter in the Trojans’ 21-0 win over Lyndon as the Trojans picked up their first wins of the season in a sweep of the Tigers.
• Rock Creek’s Jordy Scott had a big weeks in sweeps of Chapman and Marysville as the Mustangs improved to 9-2 on the season. Scott went 7 for 12 with 3 home runs, a double, 10 RBI and 10 runs scored. 
• South Lyon County’s Brayden Lienemann hit two grand slams in the same game and three home runs overall in a doubleheader sweep of Colony-Crest. He finished the 25-2 win in the second game with 9 RBI after getting the win in the first game, a 24-1 win. 
• Council Grove is off to an 11-1 start, its best start to the season in several years. The Braves' only loss came in a split with Cheney and they've picked up Flint Hills League sweeps of Chase County, West Franklin and Northern Heights to sit 6-0 in league play.
• Burlington is 13-2 with its only losses coming to Class 4A Tonganoxie and Mission Valley, the latter by a 4-3 score.
• After starting the season 1-2, Beloit has ripped off 11 straight wins to sit 12-2 going into a big North Central Activities Association doublehead with Southeast of Saline, which is 10-2. Beloit's losses came to Sacred Heart and Concordia, while Southeast has only lost to Kingman and also started 1-2 before winning nine straight.
• Frankfort is 14-2 with both of its losses coming to Doniphan West, which is 12-3. The two have split a pair of doubleheaders and Doniphan West's other loss came to Onaga, 4-3.