By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
Both the Peebles softball and baseball squads had very successful 2026 regular seasons, only to both see their campaigns come to a close in district semifinal contests.
The Lady Indians were 17-5 in the regular season and champions of the small school Division of the Southern Hills Athletic Conference with a 10-3 conference mark. The Indians’ baseball squad finished their regular season at 15-9 overall and tied for the top spot in the small school division of the SHAC, but the title went Manchester in the head-to-head tiebreaker.
The Lady Indians opened postseason play with a 12-0 run rule win over Federal Hocking advancing them to face a familiar foe, the Fairfield Lady Lions on May 19 at Unioto High School. It was a rubber game of sorts for the two teams as they had split two close game in the regular season, but this district semi turned out to be a totally different outcome. The Lady Lions got off the bus with bats blazing, scoring 12 runs in their first three at-bats and crushing the Lady Indians in a five-inning run rule win by a final score of 12-1.
Peebles was held to four hits by Fairfield pitcher Rilee Quickle, who also struck out 10 hitters in a potent Lady Indians’ lineup. Peebles senior southpaw Kaelyn Musser took the loss in uncharacteristic fashion, allowing 10 hits and seven earned runs as her defense committed three errors.
The district loss left the Lady Indians at 18-6 overall for the season, with some impressive stats to show for 24 games. Despite the rough outing against Fairfield, Musser was the winning pitcher in all 18 Peebles victories, posting an earned run average of 1.85 and accumulating 198 strikeouts in 148 innings in the center circle.
At the plate, Peebles was led by sophomore catcher Kendall Myers with an impressive .519 average to go along with 14 extra-base hits, five of those leaving the park. Myers also topped the team with 31 runs batted in. Sophomore Jerzi Tong hit .468 with 36 hits, 24 runs scored, and 24 RBI’s. On a very young Peebles squad, sophomore Amryn Carroll hit .444 with six extra-base hits and 11 driven in. Also over .400 was junior first baseman Kendall Young, who batted .417 with 30 hits and 25 runs batted in. Hitting over .300 for the season for the Lady Indians were freshman Riley Byers (.377), junior Reese Davis (.57), freshman Josie McGhee (.375), senior Kaelyn Musser (.342, 2 home runs) and freshman Katie Myers (.397).
Coach Tim Grooms and his Indians’ baseball squad opened their postseason with a 6-0 win over Eastern Pike, moving them to a Division VI district semifinal match up at the VA in Chillicothe with the Waterford Wildcats. It just wasn’t a good night for the Peebles nine as they struggled with four errors in the field and only mustered five hits off of Waterford pitching, all resulting in a season-ending 7-1 loss.
The Indians closed the spring with a record of 16-10, 9-4 in conference play and much like their softball counterparts, were a very young squad with only three seniors on the roster, Paxton Ryan, Nash Grooms and Colyn Sims.
The Indians will return their leading hitter and one of their top pitchers40 in freshman Braylen Stephens. The lefty-swinging347 and throwing Stephens hit .347, drive home 24 runs and stole 12 bases. On the bump, Stephens finished 4-4 with an ERA of 2.78. Freshman Crew Wilson hit .333 with 14 RBI’s while junior Connor Gross came in at .327, adding 13 stolen bases.
The senior Grooms hit .323 for the spring with 21 driven in and 18 stolen bases, with sophomore Bo Johnson hitting .322 and running wild on the basepaths to lead the squad with 28 stolen bases, and going 7-1 on the mound with a sparkling 1.59 ERA, striking out 62 opposing hitters in 44 innings of work. Sophomore Lukas Schmus was 4-1 with an earned run average of 2.69.