Bedford North Lawrence senior Grant Dalton becomes a leader for young team
Thursday, May 26, 2022
Jeff Bartlett - The Times-Mail
 BEDFORD — Grant Dalton was going to be a leader for the 2022 Bedford North Lawrence baseball team.
He didn't have a whole lot of choice.
Dalton was the only returning starter from the 2021 club, and for a time was the only senior on the team. He was eventually joined by senior Kylar Fisher, but he had been gone from the program for two seasons after his family moved to Michigan for his father's work.
So Dalton was going to be the dude with the "C" designation for captain, and he hasn't shied away from the responsibility. In fact, he has embraced it, and it has been vital to keeping an incredibly-youthful team together through a rollercoaster of a season.
Assuming the mantle It has added some mental weight for a kid who just turned 19 on April 13, a player who already applies pressure on himself to excel, but Dalton has embraced the added task. It wore on him a bit early and he was hitting below the Mendoza line at .188 on April 18.
Since that time, however, Dalton has gone 19-55 for a .345 average over his last 18 games.
"There's been a little bit more pressure on me, I think, this year as a senior on a really young team," Dalton said. "I try to play loose and have fun as much as I can, but I also have always put pressure on myself to play, so that has not changed.
"The extra pressure this year has come from me trying to be as good a leader as I possibly can be for the team. I have been a lot more vocal this year because I'm one of only two seniors, so I'm just trying to help the young guys with how things are supposed to be done in the program and how you need to handle yourself.
"I wasn't really sure about it because I'd never had to be the leader with all those veteran guys ahead of me. The pressure there for me was to try to play well and keep up with them, to meet their expectations and not let them down.
"Now I'm the veteran and I think at the beginning of the season I was putting a lot of pressure on myself, too much, and I was pressing and trying to do too much. The (Bloomington) South game is about where I decided I had to pull back and relax and just play. It's been a lot of fun since then. We've had our ups and downs as a team, but it's been a fun season watching everybody kind of come together."
Callahan elated with his leader
BNL head coach Jeff Callahan has been thrilled with Dalton's performance in every facet.
 "Grant has done a good job of being a senior leader," he said. "He's the first one there to practice, he stays and works after practice a lot. He's great in the dugout leading the young guys, and he has performed extremely well on the field. He has done everything you want a senior to do.
"He had a freak injury when he got cleated (during a scrimmage game) late in the preseason, and he had to miss the first two games. I think that set him back just a little bit at the plate early, but he's bounced back really well.
"I know both seniors have had a lot on their shoulders with such a young team, but they've both done a great job."
A steadying influence
Dalton (center field), with help from Fisher (shortstop), has tried to be a calming influence on a lineup that starts juniors at third/first base (Kaedyn Bennett) and catcher (Jonny Stone), but is otherwise underclassmen. Depending upon who is on the mound, the defense can have four sophomores a freshman starting, and the starting pitching staff is comprised completely of sophomores.
Naturally, there have been some serious highs (wins over Bloomington South and North, and New Albany and two different stretches of four wins in five games) and times of demonic doubt (a 31-inning scoreless streak and separate losing streaks of four and five games).
Dalton and Fisher have been fighting to prevent the inconsistencies and easily fractured confidence that accompanies youth.
"I think inexperience is a big factor," Dalton said. "We have so many new, young guys and they're very good, but now they have to learn how to handle not always succeeding because you are never going to succeed all the time in baseball.
"These guys have always been so far ahead of everybody else in their age groups coming up, but it isn't like that now when you're 15 or 16 going against 18- or 19-year old high school players.
"They make some great plays at times and they've gotten som big hits and made big pitches, but they aren't used to not succeeding and they get really down on themselves at times. They have to learn to let it go and move on to the next play. I think they have a chance to be really good the new few seasons, but it's going to be very important how they learn to handle adversity."
A special Senior Day
Dalton has provided a good example of handling adversity by digging out of his hitting slump to raise his average to .287 with four doubles, a team-high three triples, a home run, 12 RBIs, 15 runs, and a co-team-high 14 bases on balls after Tuesday's four-walk night — as the leadoff hitter — in a 1-0 win over Whiteland. He scored the only run on an RBI hit by Fisher. Dalton also has just one error all season out in center.
"It has come around pretty well," he said of his individual performance. "I got off to a bad start, but I just tried to stay with it and keep hitting it hard, trying to swing at good pitches. I figured some of them would have to start falling in for me."
Dalton essentially capped his personal comeback with a glorious Senior Day performance in a 10-0 victory over Eastern Pekin last Saturday. He crushed his first home run of the season and added a triple while scoring two runs.
"It was pretty cool for me, especially since it was my first home run of the season," Dalton said. "I'd hit four of five off the fence or one-hoppers to the track, so it was nice to finally get one to go out (he hit a pair of dingers last season) this season.
"And it was cool to do it on Senior Day. It was definitely a game I'll remember for a long time."
Making a late run
The Stars seem to be getting right at the best time. They will take a season-best four-game winning streak into the Jennings County Sectional on Saturday.
The sectional was scheduled to start Wednesday night in North Vernon with Jennings County (18-10) facing Jeffersonville (12-8) in the opener, and New Albany (15-4) dueling Floyd Central (12-3) in Game 2.
The winners of those games will play in the first semifinal on Saturday at 11 a.m., while BNL (14-14) drew a bye and will face Seymour (18-9) in the second semifinal at 1 p.m. The championship game is scheduled for Monday at 11 a.m.
Dalton will report to Southeastern Illinois College at the end of July where he'll play on a scholarship while studying kinesiology. He's greatly looking forward to playing college baseball, but he has some high school business that he wants he and his team to tend to first.
The Stars will take their four-game winning streak into the postseason, but Dalton knows that they must remain diligent at all times to contend for the title. BNL has already dropped two games to Seymour (11-6 on April 18, and 8-1 on May 9 in the HHC Tournament).
The first game was tied, 6-6, going to the 8th inning before the Owls busted loose, but BNL never got into the rematch and went down meekly.
"I'm not done at all," Dalton declared. "I'm not ready for it to be over and I think we have the best possible path we could've asked for in sectional.
"We can do some things if everyone comes out ready to play and shows a lot of heart and desire, and acts like they want to be there. I think the second time we played them a lot of people seemed like they didn't care and didn't really want to be playing.
The first game was tied, 6-6, going to the 8th inning before the Owls busted loose, but BNL never got into the rematch and went down meekly.
"I'm not done at all," Dalton declared. "I'm not ready for it to be over and I think we have the best possible path we could've asked for in sectional.
"We can do some things if everyone comes out ready to play and shows a lot of heart and desire, and acts like they want to be there. I think the second time we played them a lot of people seemed like they didn't care and didn't really want to be playing.
"We can't have that. Everybody has to want to keep this thing going. We have to stay there mentally the entire game and not have any lapses. If we do that we have a chance. I think it was big to get back to .500 going into the tournament and now we have to keep it going. It
"It almost doesn't seem real to me right now. It's gone by too fast out here these four years. Losing a year to Covid (2020) was really hard, and now all of a sudden I'm a senior getting ready to play sectional.
"I don't want it to end, and I hope everybody else is with me on that."
Contact Times-Mail Sports Writer Jeff Bartlett at jeffb@tmnews.com, or on Twitter @jeffbtmnews.
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