The East Ridge baseball team’s performance against White Bear Lake on April 8 provided a glimpse of the success the Raptors could have this season if they put everything together. Grant Ryerse pitched a complete game, giving up just one hit. The sophomore received plenty of run support as well as East Ridge cruised to an 8-0 victory.

“[We] were just hitting the snot out of the ball,” Ryerse said.

That hasn’t been the case in East Ridge’s other games early this season. A developing pitching rotation has seen success, but if the Raptors are going to improve on last season’s section final loss to Mahtomedi, their bats need to produce.

“Our pitching has been good; our defense has been solid. Hittingwise is kind of the area where we’re trying to figure things out, where our lineup’s at, whose supposed to hit where,” coach Brian Sprout said.

Before last Wednesday, Ryerse had never started a game at the varsity level. His first appearance was one to remember. He struck out six hitters and didn’t give up an earned run.

“I was pretty nervous going into it,” Ryerse said. “And then I started throwing and it kind of got better. I knew I was doing well, but I didn’t really think about the statistics much while I was out on the mound. It was a cool feeling when I heard the stat afterwards.”

Along with Ryerse, senior Carter Stoehr and sophomore Conor Bachman form a potent pitching rotation. Bachman started the first game of the season and gave up some big hits to a strong Woodbury team but, like Ryerse, has shown a lot of promise moving forward.

Both righthanders are beginning their varsity careers at the top of the rotation for a team with state tournament aspirations. With three full varsity seasons ahead of them, Ryerse and Bachman frequently talk about the strong one-two punch they could become.

“That’s really exciting,” Bachman said. “Grant and I are really good friends. Grant’s a really great guy, a nice kid. I wouldn’t want to play with anybody else.”

When Stoehr isn’t starting at catcher, he acts as the team’s experienced force on the mound. He was East Ridge’s No. 2 pitcher last season but now spends most of his time behind the plate to fill the void left by Luke Ringhofer, now a freshman at South Dakota State. Stoehr, who is being recruited by St. Thomas and others, said having a strong pitching background has helped him quickly improve as a catcher.

“As a catcher, you kind of look for where the batter’s feet are placed or what their hands do — can they hit the inside pitch? Can they hit the outside pitch? How could they do against the curveball? As a pitcher, you see those things and you know them,” he said. “You look for them as a catcher. You can then use that ability to translate the pitch count to the pitcher.”

East Ridge’s pitching appears to be performing well enough to take the Raptors to state as long as run support becomes more consistent. Sam Cobbs and Dylan Blake are some of the team’s top hitters, but East Ridge needs more production throughout the whole lineup.

“They both know the strike zone pretty well. They know when to hit, when not to hit. They know their counts and they just have good at-bats,” Sprout said. “Both of them have the ability to drive the ball all over the field with power and they do it consistently.”

Much can change between now and the Class 3A state tournament in June. East Ridge has a lot of talent in some areas but also knows what it needs to work on to reach the next level.

“We’ve been a little quiet on the hitting side, and the small-ball game we can improve on a little bit,” Bachman said. “But I think as time goes on, we’ll certainly find our groove and we’ll just take off from there.”

Jack Satzinger is a University of Minnesota student reporter on assignment for the Star Tribune.