"That's not a problem. The hard part is getting them to figure out that they're not all going to hit in the 3 hole like they did for their high school team. We have five kids who did that, so it's been a tough adjustment for some of the guys. But they've come along the last few weeks ... they've bought in pretty well."

Like last week, when Post 5 (21-7) brushed aside Columbia by a combined score of 26-7 in the best-of-three series to win the two-team district. Jefferson City will now face St. Charles in the Zone Tournament that starts Thursday in Washington, with the four Zone winners advancing to the State Tournament next week in Sedalia.

There's a lot more to this team than the talented Jays, including several players from a Helias team that advanced to the quarterfinals before getting ousted by eventual state champion, Aurora, for the second straight year.

Blair Oaks was beaten Helias in a 16-inning district championship classic, while another good season for Fatima ended with a loss to eventual state champion South Callaway in the district finals.

In other words, these are good players from good teams and when you put them all together, well ... they win, it's what they do.

Of course, another crucial key to their success has been good coaching.

"With a summer team, you don't have time to really practice, because people are busy working jobs or if they're still in high school, doing other sports," said Vaughan, 27, a graduate of Helias who's in his second year at the Post 5 helm and who also serves as an assistant to Denny Hughes at Westminster. "We've just been showing up on weekends at tournaments and trying to do our coaching during games.

"Luckily, there are good coaches in this area --- they know what they're doing and that makes it a lot easier for us,"

But even good players can be guilty of giving something less than 100 percent on every pitch of every game.

"They've played enough baseball, they know kids on the other teams and they know how good they're going to be," Vaughan said. "So there have been times where you can tell they're going through the motions, because they know we have more talent.

"I'm like, 'Guys, you can't do that, because we're going to get bit late in the season ... and we're done. So don't fall asleep on these games, you've got be ready to go when the time matters. You can't flip the switch, because it might be too late."

Vaughan then added: "If they don't play hard, we have other guys on the team who will."

It was especially difficult for the Jays, who were making the transition from winning that program's first state championship in 28 years to starting over this summer --- and playing in games that didn't really matter in front of far-smaller and less-enthusiastic crowds.

"It was mainly those first few weeks of the season when they were showing up and just going through the motions," Vaughan said. "You could tell they were just there to have fun.

"But when we got to the Omaha Tournament about a month ago and started playing teams from out of state --- and there were college coaches there watching --- that kind of got their competitive juices flowing again. That's when we started playing our best baseball.

"I don't think it's a fluke that when more attention was on them, they started playing."

The strength of the team --- not that it has any glaring weaknesses ---- has been a deep, talented pitching staff.

"Our pitching has been really good," Vaughan said. "When you play in these tournament where you might have to play five, six, seven games, some teams run out of pitching with these pitch-limit rules. But we have about seven or eight arms and they're good arms."

Unfortunately for Blair Oaks, All-State pitcher Jason Rackers battled arm issues this spring and was not a factor. But he's healthy now and is 3-1 with two saves and a tiny ERA of 0.69.

"We didn't know what to expect and we weren't going to press him," Vaughn said. "The first month of the year, he was closing games for us and got to around 30 or 40 pitches. But these last three weeks, we've bumped him up to about 75 or 80 pitches.

"He just has a great arm, one of the best arms in the state. There's no doubt in my mind he's got big things ahead of him."

Ryan Paschal (Blair Oaks) and Skyler Dickneite (Fatima) are tied for the team lead with four wins apiece, Hayden Hirschvogel (JC) has three saves, while Drew Boessen (Helias) has been an overpowering surprise. Throwing a team-high 35 1/3 innings, Boessen is 3-1 with one save and a microscopic 0.17 ERA.

"He's been coming in," Vaughan said, "and dominating people."

If Post 5 makes it to the state tournament, All-State pitcher Jacob Weirich --- who basically made the Jays' school record book his own --- should be able to rejoin the team after spending the last several weeks at Southern Miss, where he'll start his college career this fall.

"It's nice having the ace from almost every team in the area," Vaughan said. "We have about four aces on our team."

Offensively, Post 5 has only hit four home runs --- thanks in large part to playing at the spacious Legion Complex, a park slightly smaller than Yellowstone --- but they've banged out 59 doubles and seven triples.

"We have some good athletes on the team," Vaughan said. "When they get on base, they can run."

The team batting average is .309 --- that's the team average --- with Jonathon Backes (Fatima) leading the way at .424, and he's second on the team with 20 RBI (Rackers has 21).

"He's been huge for us," Vaughan said.

Gaven Strobel (JC) --- who's won the coveted No. 3 spot in the lineup --- has picked up where he left off this spring, as he's batting .413 with two home runs, a team-high 13 doubles and 16 RBI.

"He's obviously a great hitter," Vaughan said, "but one of the things you can't tell from looking at the stats is that he's one of the best defensive catchers in the state. He knows what he's doing back there, he's got a strong arm, he's tough ... he's a complete ball player."

Perhaps Post 5's most impressive offensive stat is this --- in 962 plate appearances, Post 5 has struck out only 55 times, an average of less than two a game.

That's not impressive, that's amazing.

"It's one of the things we preach, just put the ball in play," Vaughan said.

Post 5 is playing this summer without --- for the first time in five decades --- the infectious and powerful presence of George Baker, who passed away in May. As tributes, the team has his initials, GB, on their hats and they wore George Baker t-shirts beneath their uniforms at the Blue Springs Tournament.

It's just not the same without George.

"I told the guys that there were two tournaments we need to win for George, Blue Springs and state," Vaughan said. "We got the first one, now we've got to go finish the other one for him.

"He was huge for us, as a coach, financially ... he did everything for this program. We definitely can tell we don't have him this year."

It would be a rare feat, indeed, if Jefferson City does win the state championship. While they won it in 2014, you have to go back to 1999 to find the next most recent one.

By George --- and for George --- here's hoping Post 5 keeps doing what they do.

Among the successes for Post 5 this season was capturing the championship of the Fike Wood Bat Tournament, as Gaven Strobel (middle row, second from right) was named the tournament MVP.

Post 5 heading to Zone Tourney,

shooting for rare berth in state