The Brownstown baseball team gathered in the auditorium at Brownstown Central High School on Monday to celebrate its season this past spring.
Some of the players were out of town, but all 18 players that were in town showed up.
Head coach Brandon Tormoehlen started out by thanking all the parents for all the fundraising they did and gathering meals for the team. He said he couldn’t have asked for a better group of parents.
Tormoehlen then thanked his assistant coaches, most of which are former Brownstown baseball players like Tormoehlen himself.
Tormoehlen likes to keep his award ceremonies short and sweet, so he jumped right into the awards.
Receiving junior varsity awards for the Braves this year were Creed Gambrel, Brayden Polley, Keetan Burcham-Jones, Deven Cummings, Ethan Garland, Trent Lowery, Karson Rollins, Bryce Peak and Chick Tiemeyer.
Receiving varsity letters for the Braves were Braeden Anderson, Ethan Isaacs, Nathan Koch, Cayleb Covert, Cole Darlage, Ethan Davis, Jake Pauley, Levi Stahl, Wyatt Steward, Kiernan Tiemeyer, Carson Darlage, Ethan Fultz and Cristos McCormick.
Winning letterman jackets this season were Covert, Fultz, McCormick, Steward and Pauley.
McCormick received all-conference honorable mention in the Mid-Southern Conference, and all-conference honors went to Davis and Pauley.
Then Tormoehlen handed out the team awards. The coaches voted on these awards. The JV most improved award went to Rollins, and the mental attitude award went to Anderson.
Tormoehlen said Anderson is the best teammate he has ever coached in his four years at Brownstown, and he thinks most of the team would agree with that.
The leading hitter award went to Pauley. Pauley sustained an injury and missed the last eight games of the season, and Tormoehlen said it would’ve been interesting to see what numbers he ended up with at the end of the year if not for the injury.
It was similar situation for the pitching award, which went to McCormick, who also dealt with an injury in the latter half of the season.
The final award handed out on Tuesday was the MVP award, which was voted on by the players. The MVP for the Braves this season was Koch.
Tormoehlen’s final message to the team was to not be satisfied with this past season.
“Don’t be happy with the way this year this finished,” he said. “Use it as motivation because you guys are better than 12-14. You guys know that.”
This spring was Tormoehlen’s final season coaching at Brownstown. He will be taking a job closer to home (Sellersburg) this fall, teaching seventh grade math at Henryville.
Tormoehlen said he hopes to come see the team play next season, and he urged the players if they ever need anything, they can text or call him and he’ll do whatever he can to help.