As Westside baseball prepares to swing into the new season there are many questions for a very new look team. The Warriors are coming off a very disappointing 11-16 in which they had a positive run differential but the bats couldn’t come alive in the tough situation which ended in a 9-1 loss in the A-2 district semi-finals to Lincoln Southwest. However the Warriors have a brand new look, most importantly a new skipper at the top, head coach Jason Shockey, the third new head coach for the Warriors in the past three years. Last season Shockey led Bellevue West to a 20-10 season with only an extra inning loss to 2025 runner-up Millard North separating them from the state championship tournament.
Coach Shockey has a lot of experience with Nebraska high school baseball starting his career playing for Ralston high school and still holds the class A record for best batting average in a season hitting .621 in 1999 one of the longest standing records still active. Shockey played his first two years of college ball at Indian Hills Community College in Centerville, Iowa. He played two years at shortstop and helped lead the Falcons to a pair of conference titles. Shockey then transferred to play his last two years of college baseball at the University of Ohio. Shockey then started his coaching career at Iowa Western as an assistant coach before going to be an assistant coach at Creighton helping Westside alumni Darian Ruf in his breakout season with the Bluejays before getting drafted into the MLB. In 2015 he was hired to coach high school baseball at Bellevue West where he has coached for the past 10 seasons before starting his first season with the Warriors.
Sophomore Duncan Hansen is excited to play for a new head coach.
“I am very excited about playing under coach Shockey, he is an amazing mentor for the players,” Hansen said “He loves to win and will do anything for us, i’m excited to play for him as we bring back the dominant Westside baseball culture.”
Westside returns a lot of talent from last season along with some new players coming from Bellevue West with coach Shockey. Although headliner Kansas State commit Markus Chandler tore his UCL and is out for the year pitching wise it is still in the cards that he could hit this season but it is still unknown if he will be shut down for the season, Another high profile return is Lindenwood signee Braden Hosey who hit .275 last season with 10 RBI’s and led the Warriors in stolen bases last season. The big piece coming into the Warrior program is CJ Shockey, the son of the head coach. Shockey hit a solid .280 with 19 RBI’s last season and will be a huge part of this new look Warrior program.
In an interview with Prep Baseball coach Shockey talks about the challenges of the upcoming season.
“We’ve got a lot of guys returning from last summer’s legion squad,” Shockey said. “We will look to that experience as well as a solid young class to help guide us through a very challenging schedule, to reach our goals.”
The pitching rotation for Westside should be just as good as last year who finished with a 3.6 ERA. Westside lost a good amount of seniors and Chandler’s pitching but should still be a solid group with a platoon of new and young pitchers. Sophomore Kai Fredrick will be a key part of the Warriors bullpen having a 1.67 ERA in 12 appearances last year as a Freshman. Some other notable returners are Burke Brown, Andrew Tagge, Charlie Maaske and some new players from JV who will look to make an impact
Hitting was the achilles heel for the Warriors last season only scoring 4.7 runs a game being held to one run or less seven times throughout the season. Westside looks to knock the cover off the ball this year much more than last year and they have the power to do it with some notable batters such as Shockey, Frederick, Hosey, Brown and many others including some up and coming Sophmore and Juniors who got not much action last year but should make bigger strides such as Hansen and Jacob Schleifer.
Westside will look to make their first state championship tournament since 2022 and win a state championship for the first time since 2015. With Chandler out for the season it will be a tough hill to climb for Westside, but a hill that coach Shockey has climbed before. Time will tell how this season will play out for a new look Westside team on the verge of making the state championship tournament or another year of rebuilding.
Hansen voices his thoughts on the season.
“We should be a very special team,” Hansen said. “We have a lot of talent and depth, the coaching staff has done a great job at changing the culture and we have very high expectations this season.”
Westside opens the season on the road against Millard West.
